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A Schoolmaster 

with His Friends at the 

Round Table 






By 



A. R. TAYLOR, Ph.D., LL.D. 

President The James Millikin University 




CHICAGO 
O. P. BARNES, PUBLISHER 



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COPYRIGHT, 1912 
By O. P. BARNES 






©CLA309048 
NO 1 



Some truths are to be proclaimed from the house-tops ■; 
Others told at the fireside ; 
Others still should only be 
Whispered in the ear of a friend.''' 



PREFACE 

The intent of this little volume will probably be- 
come clear enough as the reader advances, and yet a 
brief foreword may quicken the understanding and 
give deeper meaning to many a paragraph. The 
semi-conversational style easily adapts itself to the 
purpose in view and gives it the advantage of the 
personal approach of the round-table, as well as a 
liberty of treatment that insures brevity and direct- 
ness. The Superintendent is aware of the fact 
that he does most of the talking, but it may add to 
the reader's interest if he will feel perfectly free to 
talk back occasionally, as the impulse arises. The 
Superintendent really likes it, for it shows him that 
the teacher is thinking a little, and that is the main 
reason for these talks. It will probably help him 
and his teachers to understand each other and each 
other's problems better. 

While these talks are mainly practical, he hopes 
that the fundamental principles underlying them 
will be constantly coming to the surface and giving 
them ,a significance worthy the high plane of the 
schoolmaster's art. The highest truths reveal them- 



6 Preface 

selves to our ken only in personal experience, and 
pedagogical doctrine is no exception. The bits of 
real life furnishing the texts for these little preach- 
ments are so suggestive that they need scarcely more 
than a word to set a true teacher a-thinking, which 
with the most of us is the one thing needful. The 
philosophy of life is not found in the clouds, but in 
the lives of the humble folk about us and in our own 
every-day experiences and consciousnesses. If we do 
not find it there, we shall not find it anywhere. 

In studying the philosophical and theoretical treat- 
ises on the subject of pedagogy, one is apt to get the 
far-away vision, the star-gazing habit, and regard 
the every-day occurrences as commonplace and tri- 
fling. If these talks will help to magnify the impor- 
tance of little things and help the teachers to see the 
Way and the Truth through them, the Superintend- 
ent will have joy. It does not detract from this 
purpose that the themes change so quickly; in that 
they conform to life's kaleidoscopic changes and to 
the opportunities of the round-table circle. 

Decatur, Nov. 191 1. A. R. T. 



THE KANSAS TEACHER 

AN APPRECIATION 



The author is now some ten years away from a 
most pleasant experience as President of the State 
Normal School of Kansas. For nineteen years he 
served the good people of that wide-awake com- 
monwealth of the plains in that capacity, and has 
many reasons for cherishing an abiding affection 
for them and their institutions. He has often had 
in mind a formal word of appreciation of the devoted 
band of teachers with whom he was permitted such 
intimate association, and to whom he is under pro- 
found obligation for much wise counsel and sym- 
pathetic encouragement, as well as for many generous 
confidences and honors. He takes advantage of 
this opportunity to express that sense of obligation, 
which is as much alive today as it was at the time 
he turned his face again toward the east. 

He assumed the duties of the office named in the 
fall of 1882, as the state was making assured prog- 
ress in its recovery from the misfortunes of the pre- 
ceding years. The people from force of circumstances 



8 Among Ourselves 

had been accustomed to doing many things in a 
small way, in spite of the fact that the seers had often 
described the stars, which they saw thru difficulties, 
and that the poets had sung in inspiring strains of 
the accomplishments of their fathers and of the in- 
creasing glory of the Sunflower Kingdom. 

They were, however, doing much constructive 
work, for their reverses had brought them into a 
better mutual understanding, which was naturally 
followed by a more sympathetic appreciation and 
affection for each other. They discovered that 
they had more in common than they supposed, 
though they still lacked much in coherence and unity 
of purpose. With an earnestness characteristic of 
the Puritans, they were already feeling their way 
towards a readjustment of their social and civic 
affairs and the reorganization of the machinery of 
government more in accord with their environ- 
ment and their ideals of equity and justice. Being 
one of the most American of the States, the prob- 
lems were more intelligently and courageously at- 
tacked in her borders than would otherwise have 
been possible. 

The repeated failures of crops in many portions 
of the state made it necessary for the brightest 
young people, in thousands of families, to teach school 
in order to help meet home expenses and to pay 
interest on obligations for which homesteads had been 
pledged. That necessity, covering at least a score 
of years, probably brought into the schoolrooms of 



Among Ourselves 9 

Kansas the most serious-minded, the most intelligent, 
the most progressive, the most conscientious body of 
school teachers ever found in a state of equal age. 
A large proportion of them were sons and daughters 
of soldiers of the Civil War, many of whom were well- 
educated and well-read. A goodly proportion were 
children of teachers on one or the other side of the 
house, and a surprising number were graduates of 
colleges or normal schools. 

The advanced system of county institutes, organ- 
ized in the early eighties, brought a most helpful 
teachers' elementary training school within reach 
of every youth in the state. Its courses were well 
formulated on modern lines, and its teaching corps 
embraced many of the most able and progressive 
men and women in the profession in Kansas and from 
other states. In many places the whole community 
became interested in the institute, and thousands of 
citizens of both sexes, who had no thought of teach- 
ing, became regular attendants at lectures, and even 
at class exercises; mothers put aside their sewing; 
fathers closed their shops and offices; even judges 
adjourned court to hear the new evangel of pedagogy. 
The education of children and the improvement of 
public schools were topics of serious consideration 
everywhere. The day of the old-fashioned district 
schoolmaster was over, and the modern teacher, with 
no less consecration and enthusiasm, but with far 
better education and far better preparation, was 
rapidly taking his place. 



io Among Ourselves 

The inadequacy of the county institutes for meet- 
ing the growing demands for teachers with still more 
liberal preparation for their work, resulted in an 
annual influx of hundreds of progressive teachers 
from eastern states, and in swarms of Kansas teach- 
ers, present and prospective, flocking to the normal 
schools and other institutions of higher learning, to 
avail themselves of the advantages which they 
offered. In ten years, the attendance at the State 
Normal School increased five hundred per cent., and 
at the other institutions proportionally. 

The standards for the certification of teachers, 
under the stimulation of the State Board of Educa- 
tion and the hearty co-operation of school officials, 
became more exacting from year to year. Depart- 
ments of pedagogy, manned by professionally trained 
instructors, were organized in practically every college 
in the state. Licenses to institute instructors and 
conductors were granted only to men and women 
meeting the most exacting requirements; the courses 
of study were revised and enlarged from time to time 
in accordance with the most advanced educational 
theory and practice; modern school buildings with 
liberal equipment were everywhere replacing the tem- 
porary structures of the pioneer days [in city and 
country; the school laws were revised, and the whole 
system organized on a plane more commensurate 
with the needs of a progressive commonwealth, and 
in harmony with the spirit of the closing years of 
the century. 



Among Ourselves II 

It is needless to say that the chief promoters of 
these great changes were the schoolmasters them- 
selves. They cordially welcomed the outside recruits 
to their ranks, plunged enthusiastically into the 
study of the child, and of the history, the philosophy 
and the methodology of pedagogy; met frequently 
and regularly, often traveling long distances, to 
exchange experiences and to discuss methods of 
improving the organization and management of 
the public schools, and of increasing their own effi- 
ciency as teachers. Through the press and plat- 
form, they strove in every conceivable way to arouse 
public interest in education and to stimulate larger 
provision for its advancement. Because of their 
insistence, the legislature passed the law providing 
that candidates for the state certificate should have 
completed a full college course, or its equivalent, in- 
cluding approved professional courses in the five 
prescribed subjects, or, pass an examination in the 
same, a requirement that soon placed Kansas in the 
front rank educationally. 

That all these beneficent and substantial advances 
could be accomplished in so short a time is explain- 
able only as one realizes that the moral motif domi- 
nated all others in the average Kansas teacher. 
One could not be among them long without catching 
its significance and appreciating its influence in the 
development of the intellectual and spiritual life of 
the people. The devotion with which the' early 
settlers had consecrated themselves to liberty was 



12 Among Ourselves 

not only inherited by their children, but character- 
ized the kindred spirits who came later. It leavened 
more or less all activities, domestic, industrial, com- 
mercial, social, educational, and civil, with the leaven 
of righteousness; and conscience, rather than personal 
or partisan advantage, was manifest in the construc- 
tive force that wrought public sentiment and gave it 
expression in statutory enactments. Nowhere else 
was it more loyally instilled than in the schoolroom, 
nowhere else was character more highly magnified 
and virtue more faithfully inculcated. 

High as were the scholastic and professional ideals 
in the certification of Kansas teachers, the moral 
ideals were as zealously conserved. There were 
exceptions, but I have often been impressed with the 
idea that Kansas teachers, as a whole, rank higher in 
the three characteristics mentioned than the rank and 
file of teachers I have met in other states. I have 
spent twenty years in college work in Illinois, with 
thousands of students entering from the public 
schools of more than a score of states, and I am con- 
vinced that the graduates of the Kansas schools 
reveal a training in methods of thinking, in habits 
of study, and in a preparation for college and normal 
school work, in no sense inferior to that of the older 
states, and often in many respects very superior. 
I have found no other state in which the professional 
side of the preparation for teaching is regarded as 
more essential for the grades or for the secondary 
schools. Late in the nineties, a poll showed hundreds 



Among Ourselves 13 

of graduates of normal schools and colleges in gradu- 
ate study at some advanced institution of learning, 
pursuing special or professional courses, to fit them- 
selves for better service in the schoolroom. 

The esprit du corps of the Kansas teachers has 
always been a source of pride among them. Tho 
having their differences and rivalries, somewhat 
after the fashion of other mortals, they enjoy 
each other's fellowship, and strive for the im- 
provement and advancement of all in a most 
commendable way. The fraternity spirit among 
them is so much alive that few teachers are disposed 
to apologize for belonging to the craft, as is rather 
common elsewhere. 

Kansas has been finding herself more and more 
able to fill important principalships and superintend- 
encies, as well as departmental headships in her 
secondary schools and colleges, out of the ranks of 
her own teachers. Many of them have been sought 
by school and college officials from other states, east 
and west, north and south. Among them I recall 
over a dozen college presidents, nearly half as many 
normal school presidents, nearly fifty college and 
normal school professors, and a long list of city 
superintendents and high school principals. There 
are assuredly several hundreds of them filling more 
or less important positions in the public and private 
schools in other parts of the country. I seldom 
attend a representative teachers' convention in any 
city without meeting some of them. 



14 Among Ourselves 

The efficiency of any system of schools is due as 
much to the intelligence and loyalty of the rank and 
file of the teaching body as to that of its leaders. 
That is the secret of the great strides which Kansas 
has made. That makes it possible to inaugurate 
new movements successfully and to build up the 
higher institutions of learning so rapidly. The real 
test is to be found there rather than in the number 
called to other fields and to higher responsibilities. 

I have watched the educational developments in 
Kansas in these years of absence with much satis- 
faction, and rejoice that the old spirit still dominates 
and directs the mass of its teachers, and that it is 
keeping step with the advanced guard in other parts 
of the Union. As servants of the state, more than 
any other public servants, the conservation of her 
cherished ideals, her whole future, depends vitally 
upon the character and culture of the teachers. 

Politicians may legislate, reformers may moralize, 
preachers may exhort, promoters may exploit, but 
without the teacher, retrogression quickly reveals 
itself everywhere, paralyzing the forces and the insti- 
tutions that make for good order, for prosperity, and 
for righteousness, in the home and in the community. 

George R. Peck used to say that the Kansas farmer 
must have been in the eye of Saint Paul when he 
wrote the seventh verse of the thirteenth chapter of 
First Corinthians. If so, he possibly had the Kansas 
schoolmaster in mind when he wrote the three verses 
immediately preceding, for the oncoming genera- 



Among Ourselves 15 

tions are showing the training of modest, but master 
spirits, whose lives have been as forceful as their pre - 
cepts, and whose examples have been as potent as the 
truths they inculcated. And yet it would be a pity 
and a calamity for any body of teachers to be con- 
tent with no better service than that given by those 
who preceded them. With a better heritage, with 
larger opportunities, with improved facilities, and 
with more sympathetic public appreciation, they 
ought to be making greater strides in professional 
advancement and proficiency from year to year. 
I shall be grateful if these little talks contribute in 
some small degree to that end. 



"Said Life to Art : ' I love thee best 
Not when I find in thee 
My very face and form expressed 
With full fidelity, 

But when in thee my craving eyes 
Behold continually 
The mystery of my ??iemories 
And all I long to be.' " 



AMONG OURSELVES. 



Wake Up ! Whether you are a sleepy teacher or a 
sleeping teacher, it is surely time for you to wake up. 
The sun of the new education is already high above the 
horizon, and yet you seem oblivious to the light of this 
new day. Your fellow teachers are awake and at work. 
Your patrons are hearing about the discoveries in child 
life and the improvements in educational method. Your 
pupils see that you are stupid and slow, and they are 
running away from you. You are wasting precious time 
and allowing golden opportunities to go by unimproved. 
Awake ! 

" Taste the joy 
That springs from labor." 

Wash Up ! Yes, wash up ! A sleepy teacher needs to 
wash up. Nothing but a good body bath and vigorous 
rubbing will bring him out of his stupor and start circula- 
tion. The sleepy teacher is sure to be slovenly in person 
as well as slovenly in his schoolroom and in his work. 
A reform in externals through the generous use of castile 
soap and hot water is the first requisite for success. His 

17 



1 8 Among Ourselves. 

enjoyment of the day depends upon it; his clearness of 
vision is made possible by it ; his success in interesting his 
pupils is enhanced with it; the atmosphere becomes pure 
and crisp and vitalizing; the machine becomes a man! 
" He that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger." 
Brush Up ! What ! Do you ask a school-teacher to 
brush up ? Even so, my brother. Your clothing as well 
as your hair needs brushing at least once a day, often 
twice. Your hat looks as though it belonged to a steam- 
thresher outfit, and your boots suggest the dairy-yard. 
Certainly you ought to brush up. While we are brushing, 
let us take a little turn at dusting your books, your desk, 
and the furniture generally about your schoolroom. 
Have you really failed to notice the cobwebs in every 
corner, the rusty old stove, and the greasy-looking black- 
boards ? But you need to brush up mentally still more. 
You have not only forgotten many valuable things you 
once knew, but you have not been keeping your wits sharp 
and keen by study and investigation. You have been 
wrapped up in your own self-sufficiency and are as rusty 
as that old stove. If you do not brush up, you will soon 
go where it will go when a wide-awake teacher comes in 
at the front door, — into the old iron pile. 

' Foul, cankering rust the hidden treasure frets; 
But gold that's put to use, more gold begets." 

Brace Up ! If the washing and brushing be thoroughly 
done, you will feel so much like a new man that you will 
stand straight on your feet and wonder whether you will 
ever be sleepy again. This is the time to realize the 



Among Ourselves. 19 

dignity of your work, to find in it problems worthy the 
ambition of any man, to cast aside your timidity and face 
duty willingly and fearlessly, to fortify yourself where you 
are weak, and to fit yourself for leadership. Your 
dependency and hesitancy have almost unfitted you for 
any aggressive action, and nothing but a new baptism of 
the spirit can give you that confidence which brooks no 
defeat. Let past ills and past misfortunes be forgotten in 
the new life upon which you now enter. 

" No great deed is done 

By falterers who ask for certainties." 

Look Up ! This leads me to remark that salvation will 
not come unless you look upward. The eye can scarce 
see a dozen miles on the level plain, but it can see a 
mountain-top a hundred miles away and a star in the in- 
finite depths of space overhead. No man ever becomes 
wise or great or strong by clinging to his muck-rake. It 
is vision that awakens and quickens and inspires. It is 
outlook that calls forth impulse and multiplies power and 
vitalizes faith. The rut in which you have been running 
so long is pretty deep, and it obstructs your view. The 
little things that have been filling out each day's experi- 
ences have kept you contracted and narrow, both in head 
and in heart. 

" In your dull atmosphere, a thing so fair, 
Never tripped, with footsteps light as air, 
So glad a vision o'er the hills of morn." 

Work Up ! But what good is it to see and not to 
realize ? What gain if you simply catch glimpses of 



20 Among Ourselves 



greater things and hear vanishing strains of nobler 
melodies ? What you see and hear is possible of realiza- 
tion. A perfect understanding of what you are not makes 
that very ideal attainable, — not in an hour or a day, but 
in the coming hours and in the coming days. The notion 
that youth is the only time to learn died long ago. The 
man who is just out of school is but just prepared to 
learn; the teacher who holds a first-grade certificate is 
simply a little better prepared to learn than the one who 
holds a second- or a third-grade, — that is all. The man 
at forty ought to be seeing and learning many times more 
than he saw and learned at two and twenty. Proctor 
began the study of astronomy in earnest at thirty-nine. 
W. T. Harris began the study of French at forty. Hugh 
Miller's scholarship was attained while working as a stone- 
mason. G. Stanley Hall made his first systematic study 
of Froebel after fifty. Julia Ward Howe began to study 
Greek at seventy and became a fine Greek scholar. An 
hour of study per day now ought to do as much for you 
as five hours at the age of twelve. Can you not find so 
much time out of each twenty-four ? I grant that you 
may be just waking up, but thank God for that, and go to 
work. Remember that he who aspires must also perspire 
if he is to accomplish anything. 

•"Tis he, I know the manner of his gait; 
He rises on the toe; that spirit of his 
In aspiration lifts him from the earth!" 

Keep Up ! " To have done, is to hang 

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 
In monumental mockery." 



Among Ourselves. 21 

It is not enough to work up; you ought also to keep 
up. No matter what your attainments may be, you will 
quickly fall behind if you slacken effort. New inventions, 
new discoveries, new methods, new adjustments of old 
devices, deeper insight, wider vision, greater economy of 
time and labor, readier agreement in theory and practice, 
characterize the advancing years. The only way to main- 
tain your standing and increase your usefulness is to keep 
in touch with the best thought and to keep working at the 
most promising problems of the hour. By this I do not 
mean that you should feel it necessary to be acquainted 
with every little fad or novelty that forces itself into the 
pedagogical horizon, nor with the whole field of peda- 
gogical literature, but rather with the main currents of 
thought, — those that touch all phases of our educational 
life, and with that particular one which relates more 
directly to your individual work. You ought to be 
familiar with the latest investigations in physiology and 
psychology, particularly on the side of the child and of 
the youth. You ought to'know the pedagogical value of 
such inquiries, and understand how the results may be 
profitably utilized in the schoolroom. You ought above 
all to be bringing yourself more fully into sympathy with 
your children through a daily study of their dispositions, 
their limitations, their needs. A little self-study will help 
the process along materially. 

These Three ! A candidate for the ministry sought an 
old Scotch divine for counsel concerning his education. 
The veteran said to him : " Three things you need to suc- 
ceed : learning, piety, and common sense. If you lack 



22 



Among Ourselves. 



the first, go to college; if the second, pray earnestly to 
God for it ; if you lack the third, neither man nor God 
can help you! " Brother, which one dost thou lack ? 

Throwing Off the Shackles. In the kindergarten talk 
at Clarke University this summer, I heard Dr. Hall say 
that he had spent a good part of a year studying Froebel, 
and that while he was profoundly impressed with his 
philosophy, he thought his system of gifts and symbols 
the most cumbrous and illogical piece of machinery he 
had ever met ; it was probably the best that could be 
done in his time, but that teachers in this day and genera- 
tion should be perpetuating the fetich exactly as Froebel 
fashioned it was incomprehensible. To the surprise of 
everybody, the leading kindergartners present were loudest 
in applauding his remarks. One of them followed him, 
maintaining that all true kindergartners were throwing off 
the shackles of the old system and in the clearer light of 
the new psychology were gaining a better understanding 
of Froebel and were giving his gifts and symbols a sub- 
ordinate place among the devices now so abundantly at 
hand. Intelligent adaptation, not slavish following, is 
the watchword of the new school of kindergartners. 

The Kindergarten and Child Study. It is hardly 
conceivable, but it is true, that, many kindergartners are 
unable to see anything good in child study. They think 
that Froebel knew everything about the child and wrote it 
in a book. They can find it there; if not, it is not worth 
knowing. For the same reason the Mohammedans burned 
the Alexandrian Museum, insisting that all knowledge of 
any value is contained in the Koran. There are others, 



Among Ourselves. 23 

however, that welcome it as one of the great movements 
through which they are to know and serve the child. 
They are delighted to see a little child sitting in the midst 
of the doctors of pedagogy and with joy receive the glad 
tidings of the new gospel. A kindergarten course without 
child study is already like a laboratory without a micro- 
scope, and our Froebelian fossils may just as well fall into 
line at once. 

Licked for That ! The hour was late and seven thous- 
and teachers were tired out, having stood and sat through 
several long speeches at the opening meeting of the 
N. E. A. in the great Convention Hall at Washington. 
As the president introduced Hon. Webster Davis as the 
representative of the United States Government for an 
additional word of welcome, two or three thousand of 
them were on their feet moving toward the doors. In 
superb voice that reached every corner of the great build- 
ing, he said bruskly: "What do you school-teachers 
mean ? I was licked many times when a boy for doing 
just what you are doing now." Surprised at his blunt- 
ness and humor, nearly everybody turned back to his chair 
and gladly listened until the last word had been spoken. 
The rebuke is too often deserved by us. We are some- 
times even brutally exacting of our pupils concerning 
order and silence and chatter away like magpies when 
others are on the platform. Half a dozen schoolma'ams 
around me say, "That's so," and yet several of them 
repeat the offense on the first occasion ! 

' ' Oh, would some power the giftie gie us 
To see ourselves as others see us!" 



24 Among Ourselves. 

The Glory of Dying. Probably no war has ever been 
conducted with such regard for the value of human life as 
the late war with Spain. There was a day when a leader 
thought it a disgrace to surrender to a foe until he had 
first sacrificed the body of his soldiers, even though defeat 
was a foregone conclusion. That day, thanks to humani- 
tarian education, is gone forever. Never again will public 
sentiment justify the slaughter of an army simply to 
demonstrate the bravery of the slaughtered. Rushing to 
death when nothing can be accomplished by it is inexcus- 
able suicide. Nobody calls Toral and Jaudenes cowards 
because, seeing the inevitable, they would not pander to 
a foolish sentiment and sacrifice their men in a hopeless 
resistance. The most glorious thing on that glorious 
Sunday morning in Santiago harbor was the splendid 
humanity shown by the American seamen in their efforts 
to rescue the maimed and helpless Spaniards from their 
burning and sinking ships. The meed of praise goes to 
the generous-hearted warriors, but the modest teacher in 
the little schoolhouse and the gentle-hearted mother in 
the quiet home yonder are the real authors of this great 
revolution in modern warfare. 

He who helps a child helps humanity, with an imme- 
diateness which no other help given to human creatures 
in any other stage of their human life can possibly give 
again. — Phillips Brooks. 

If a man deserves praise, be sure that you give it him, 
else you not only run a chance of driving him from the 



Among Ourselves. 25 

right road by want of encouragement, but you deprive 
yourselves of the happiest privilege you will ever have of 
rewarding his labor. — Ruskin. 

The Better Way. Vinicius, in Quo Vadis, greatly 
feared the gentler way of managing slaves as urged by the 
Christians in Nero's time. He tried it one day, and to 
his intense surprise was met with warm thanks and gener- 
ous professions of loyalty. In writing to Petronius shortly 
afterward, he said he was almost convinced that the new 
way was better than the lash and torture. If thus for 
servants and slaves, why not also for the children in the 
schools ? 

The One Great Need. To this query of a friend, we 
answer quickly, Yes and amen! 

" I have spent many pleasant days with my little friends 
here, but I often feel discouraged at the thought of how 
little I can do to minister to their needs. Their greatest 
need is that of worthy examples — but is that not the great 
need of children everywhere ? — examples of uprightness, 
purity, gentleness of manner, and grace of speech ? " 

Morals as is Taught ! Puck has evidently been eaves- 
dropping, for the following is not all fiction: 

Mother: Now, Willie, you told me a falsehood. Do 
you know what happens to little boys who tell falsehoods ? 
Why, a big black man with only one eye in the centre of 
his forehead comes along and flies with him to the moon 
and makes him pick sticks for the balance of his life. 
Now, you will never tell a falsehood again, will you ? It 
is awful wicked! 

This old-fashioned way of imparting instruction is, we 



26 Among Ourselves. 

hope, not among those over whose displacement by the 
new education some of our fathers mourn. 

What Makes It Kick ? I gave a kicking Brownie to 
a little friend of mine and he enjoyed it immensely for 
weeks, but his desire to know " how in the world that 
funny kick came in," as it rolled over at the foot of the 
incline, possessed him sorely. One day he tore open the 
Brownie's coat and found " only a ball " inside. He was 
satisfied, however, and was wiser than before, though he 
was minus a plaything. That boy is a philosopher, for he 
wants to know the causes of things. The Brownie was 
worth nothing compared with the knowledge and experi- 
ence it gave him. The truth is, every boy ought to be en- 
couraged to go to the bottom of things. That he has such 
a desire is cause for rejoicing. Do everything to keep 
it alive. In fact, never permit him to leave anything he is 
investigating until he has discovered what makes it kick. 

In the Pantry. One day Eugene Field was found by 
a returning mother, in the pantry with the children mak- 
ing way with some victuals. All were in high glee. 
Enquiry developed the fact that he had called a few 
minutes before and, finding the little people alone, pro- 
posed a foraging party for their entertainment. Just how 
he wriggled out of the affair I have never heard, but 
possibly he compromised on " apple pie and cheese." 
Of one thing I am assured, the children defended him. 
He ought to have known that the pantry might not have 
been in its usually tidy condition, that there was nothing 
there " fit for visitors," that the children never went there 
without the express permission of mother, that it is wrong 



Among Ourselves. 27 

to eat between meals, that it was hardly the proper thing 
for a caller to do; but the boy that was in him forgot all 
of these things and off they all went for roast lamb and 
cold slaw. It was his ability to become a little child, — 
mischievous, daring, merry, and then to rise up in an 
instant a big warm-hearted man, that made all the children 
his friends. It would be a dangerous experiment for a 
schoolmaster to lead the children into at least one pantry 
I could name, but there are other ways in which he might 
endear himself to the whole household if he but possessed 
the true spirit. 

Father Superior. The position and the function of 
the superintendent or principal are not very well denned 
in many schools. In one, I recall, the superintendent 
hardly knows that his soul is his own, for the school board 
gives him orders about the minutest details, elects and 
assigns teachers, adopts text-books, fixes salaries, changes 
courses of study, buys apparatus, and makes repairs, with- 
out consulting him in any way whatever. In another, a 
few subordinate teachers run the superintendent and the 
entire system of schools. He never thinks of taking a 
stand on any question until he knows just how much 
support he can have from the cabal ; indeed, he does not 
seem to know that there is any position to take until they 
speak. Both are dummies. In a third, the superin- 
tendent keeps well in touch with both the board and the 
teachers. He strives to know their views and to give 
them respectful consideration. He is conscious that the 
responsibility for the success of the schools rests in large 
measure upon his own shoulders, that his position gives 



28 Among Ourselves. . 

him a better view of the field as a whole than any one else; 
that as superintendent he must be the leader of his force 
of teachers and must be permitted to plan and direct their 
work. But each of them, as a 

Mother Inferior, has of course certain rights and a 
certain individuality which must be respected. In cases 
of differences of opinion, free and friendly discussion will 
often find a solution satisfactory to all, but when the 
decision is made, deference should always be given to the 
views which the superintendent finally urges. Somebody 
must yield, and if the views of each of the individual 
teachers obtain, there is nothing but endless confusion. 
It is true that a subordinate has responsibility as well as 
the superior, but as an assistant her responsibility is not 
so grave as his. If the result be unfortunate, the blame 
lies with him, but only with him in case she has faithfully 
striven to follow out his plans and methods. A poor 
method with a proper spirit will accomplish much more 
than a good method without an understanding and 
cooperating spirit. But the true relation that should 
always exist between superiors and inferiors is found only 
as they work together as 

Brothers and Sisters All ! If each is recognizing the 
duties and responsibilities of his fellows, if each is con- 
scious of his own need as well as of the needs of his 
coworkers, if each is thinking less of his own advancement 
than of the advancement of the schools as a whole, is ready 
to yield non-essentials gracefully and to strive for harmony 
on essentials, is ready to bear and forbear with old and 
young, is as jealous of the good name of every teacher on 



Among Ourselves. 29 

the roll as of his own, is, in fact, always possessed of the 
true spirit of love and cooperation, there will be neither 
need nor desire for the father superior to exercise his 
authority, nor for mother inferior to bend the knee to an 
exacting lord. If some teachers were to work half as hard 
in their efforts to promote harmony and to strengthen the 
hands of their leader as they do to arouse discord, they 
would often be greatly surprised at the result. And, 
again, if some superintendents would only strive a little 
to understand their teachers and to assist them to under- 
stand the plans which they wish followed, the reward 
might not be less satisfactory than from the course they 
now pursue. Each teacher is a whole in himself, but he 
is also a part of the greater whole, the schools in which 
he labors. 

If all the year were playing holidays, 

To sport would be as tedious as to work; 

But when they seldom come, they wished for come, 

And nothing pleasant but rare accidents. 

— Shakespeare. 

Shearing, but Not Feeding. Dr. Johnson is said to 
have refused a very desirable pastorate because, to use his 
own words, " I am unwilling to shear a flock that I am 
unable to feed." If a little more of that same spirit were 
to enter into all of the professions, it would be a great 
blessing to humanity. The disposition to crowd into posi- 
tions without fitting ourselves for them is the crying evil 
of the age. The tempting fleece rather than the food for 
the flock is the one moving desire. If such a great man 



3° Among Ourselves. 

as Dr. Johnson was hesitating, how much more should 
we be assured of our ability to meet the demands, in the 
larger sense of the word, of the position to which we aspire. 

Saw Himself. When Orson was about to strike down 
his brother with whom he was engaged in mortal combat, 
it is said that he saw his own image reflected in his 
brother's burnished shield and that his battle-axe fell 
harmless to the ground. In taking my pupils to task, I 
have often seen my earlier self reflected in them and have 
thus been able to understand them better, and have 
frequently been led to treat them more kindly on account 
of it. Sometimes the image has reminded me of failures 
to understand my teachers, sometimes of my inability to 
resist temptation even though conscious of wrong-doing, 
sometimes of a perverseness which I needed somebody to 
fathom, sometimes of a seeming disrespect which I did not 
feel nor intend to express, sometimes of the fact that once 
I was a boy with notions and passions very much like 
those of boys and girls of the present generation. 

Kindling-wood. The Sunday School Times says that a 
certain church member was being put down by a neigh- 
boring pastor as poorly educated and evidently of little 
value to the congregation to which he belonged, when his 
own pastor interfered and said: " That man is worth one 
hundred dollars per year for kindling-wood. He has a 
warm and sympathetic nature, and his zeal never flags. 
He is always at prayer-meeting and his simple, heartfelt 
testimonies seldom fail to arouse and quicken interest on 
every side." How often are teachers' associations kept 
alive by just such a man or woman. The one who throws 



Among Ourselves. 31 

in a cheery word now and then, who leads in generous 
applause as a good point is made, who comes early and 
shakes everybody's hands, who insists that " we have had 
a good meeting, and it has done me lots of good," is just 
as necessary to the maintenance of a live teachers' associa- 
tion as the brethren and sisters who do most cf the think- 
ing and talking along the lines of higher criticism. This 
very same phosphoric little body often excels his more 
philosophic brother in the schoolroom, because his pupils 
are always alert and eager to learn. 

"A Kind of Schoolmaster's Laugh !" Recently a 
distinguished speaker was addressing a company of 
students and indulging in a reminiscence of his school 
days, when he remarked that " the teacher laughed, a kind 
of schoolmaster's laugh, you know ! " Since then I have 
been wondering what a schoolmaster's laugh is, anyhow: 
whether it is really different from that of the preacher or 
the lawyer or the merchant or the politician; whether it 
is dyspeptic or healthful, sad or merry, suppressed or free; 
whether it is like that of a Shylock or a Falstaff, of a 
Uriah Heep or a Peggotty, of a Jeremiah or a Zagloba; 
whether it is like the coarse guffaw of the Northmen or 
the rippling roundelay of the Castilian maidens, the rich 
roar of the mountaineer, or the gay cackle of the gon- 
dolier, the amused grunt of the Kaffir chief or the silly 
giggle of the girl of the period; whether he laughs with 
his, hands on his sides or on his head, with his mouth 
open or shut, — explosively, repulsively, expulsively, or 
effusively, — grammatically, mathematically, aesthetically, 
or apologetically, — sincerely, hypocritically, patronizingly, 



32 Among Ourselves. 

painfully, or pleasurably, lazily or industriously, affectedly 
or naturally, boldly or timidly, conceitedly or depreciat- 
ingly. Does he laugh in orotund, oral, pectoral, guttural, 
or nasal tones ? Does he laugh impulsively or reflectively, 
individually or collectively, disjointedly or in a logical 
order, — proceeding from the known to the unknown, from 
the concrete to the abstract, analytically or synthetically ? 
Does he laugh like the ghost that pursued Gabriel Grubb, 
or the witch that hailed Macbeth ? Does the school- 
master laugh at all ? Does he not simply smile ? Poor 
schoolmaster! 

And some are dreams that thrill with joy, 

And some that melt to tears; 
Some are dreams of the dawn of love, 

And some of the old dead years. 

— Eugene Field. 

As soon as a man sides with his critic against himself, 
he is already cultured. — Emerson. 

Undefined! In writing concerning the moral and 
religious character of a certain teacher, a correspondent 
says that it is " undefined." If his moral character is not 
yet defined, ought he to be placed in charge of anybody's 
children ? Think of it; a man of " many years' experi- 
ence " and yet with an undefined character! No wonder 
" salaries are low and he seeks a better paying position.' 
Herbart is not the only man who reminds us that moral 
character is the sole end of all education. 

Things to See. A teacher must learn what things to 
see and what not to see. He must have keen eyes and 



Among Ourselves. 33 

quick ears, seeing and hearing everything, but overlook- 
ing, so far as his pupils may know, the thousand little 
things which come about by accident or through the 
innocence of the children. Some things are essential; on 
them hang the law and the prophets, — and they must not 
be passed by. Others are thrown out as feelers by the 
mischief breeders, and their meaning should quickly be 
discovered. Miss Smith, over in No. 29, is always in hot 
water because she has not learned what she may wisely 
overlook. She frowns if a child smiles when she thinks 
he ought to look sober; she scolds when he yawns, even 
though he has sat for an entire hour in a close room with- 
out moving a muscle; she calls him back for a " love 
tap " on Tom Brown's shoulder just one-tenth of a second 
before she gave the signal for the line going to the play- 
ground to break ranks; she detains him after school 
because he accidentally touched his slate against his chin 
when trying to get it into his desk, causing a little girl 
near by to giggle just one whole giggle, just one! Now, 
if these things were all done by one boy, there might be 
some reason for alarm, but they were not. The little 
offenders are as innocent of wrong-doing as babes, and 
yet Miss Smith frets and stews as though they had com- 
mitted crimes against the decalogue. No wonder every 
child in her room is nervous and restless. It were a 
miracle if they were otherwise. 

Man to the Tenth Power. In speaking of the intensi- 
fying of the individual which the colleges are attempting, 
Dr. Jordan says: It takes a man's "best abilities and 
raises him to the second power, or to the third, or to the 



34 Among Ourselves. 

tenth, as we say in algebra." Could anything more 
happily express the work which education does for the 
child ? In his evolution, he simply multiplies himself, 
rises from one power to another, and education helps the 
process along. The question is: At what power shall the 
movement stop ? Shall it be at the third, or the 
thirteenth ? As there is no limit to the power to which a 
number may rise, so there is no limit at which the mind 
must stop. If given intelligent direction, it soon, of its 
own volition, rises another power, and at each step gains 
the added strength needed for its onward sweep toward 
the infinite. How puerile our old three-R conception of 
education beside this ideal for our youth ! 

That Leyden Jar. Dr. Behrends is quoted by the 
Pilgrim Teacher as saying of one of his college professors 
that he never used a text-book. " He was so full of 
excitement that he was all over the room, in every con- 
ceivable position, graceful and awkward, standing, sitting, 
and leaning on his desk, in the chair, on the window sill, 
in the middle of the floor, and everywhere the same 
excited and exciting person." No one could touch him 
without receiving a shock himself. That description 
reminds one of Ruby's star performance on the piano, — 
"and the thing busted!" And yet that wriggling, 
gyrating, textless teacher is held up as an example to 
Sunday-school teachers! Possibly we need a shock to 
waken some of us up, for there are many teachers that 
several volts would not harm, and so we get it in this turn 
of the electrical machine, but let us pray to be preserved 
from such nervous contortionists as are here described. 




MOONLIGHT ON THE KAW 

And the dusky depths of the willows thrilled From 

As the echoing music rose and rang, KANSAS LANDSCAPES 

And the clouds bent down and their dews distilled Copyright Photo 

Like tears of joy, while the cat-bird sang." By O. P. Barnes 

■ — Ernest McGaffey. 



Among Ourselves. 37 

Pupils whose attention is secured in such a manner will 
not be doing much profitable thinking in the classroom. 
A teacher should be a Leyden jar, well filled and under 
complete control, but not breaking out here and there in 
all manner of ways, blinding the eyes, shocking the senses, 
and frightening the "children out of their wits. 

The Lesson of the Tree. All good, strong trees have 
roots corresponding in size and surface to the branches 
above ground. The character and wealth of foliage and 
fruit depends entirely upon the work which the roots are 
doing in the earth beneath, out of sight and sound. 
Quietly, ceaselessly they gather nourishment for the tree, 
sustaining its life, extending its branches, enriching its 
fruitage. The more active they are in the dark, under- 
ground, the more vigorous the tree. The same is true of 
the teacher. The more work he does in his study or in 
his laboratory, the more he is able to do for his classes. 
If he spends much time alone investigating, gathering, 
thinking, planning for them, he is the better prepared to 
mett their demands and to stimulate them to greater 
effort. No one should rely upon spontaneous inspiration. 
He ought to make such a preparation that he goes before 
his classes gorged and filled with his subject, as the root- 
cells of the tree crowd each other with the rich food they 
are hurrying forward to the branches above. Such a 
teacher goes to his class feeling, as Hazard expresses it, 
that he " must teach or burst." And such a teacher as 
that will never fail to sustain interest in his pupils. 

Salt, Soda, and Quinine. And now comes the story 
from a town in Missouri, that the vigilance committee, 



3 8 Among Ourselves. 

which is usually active in every community, has just dis- 
covered that the teachers of that town have been in the 
habit of giving their pupils salt as a punishment for the 
first offense in whispering, soda for the second, and 
quinine for the third! Evidently such a logical grading 
of penalties could not spontaneously rise in any corps of 
teachers, and it must be the result of much experience 
and earnest counsel. That asafcetida, nicotine, and 
strychnine did not get into the list of deterrents is possibly 
due to the activity of that committee. " Some sensational 
developments are expected when the matter is presented 
to the school board." Well, let them come! The 
sooner the better. We wait with breathless interest the 
result of the deliberations of the board on this latest of 
methods for preventing whispering. We are a little 
inclined to think that some sodium or cinchona trust is 
behind the innovation and that it has more currency than 
is generally supposed. 

Finding the Heartache. William Allen White told 
the students at the State University the other day that all 
of their learning would amount to little, if with it they 
do not also become so intimately acquainted with 
humanity and its pulse beats that " they can find a heart- 
ache as quickly and as unerringly as they can find a star. " 
Well said and truly said! An education that fails to 
awaken the sympathetic side of a child's nature, and to 
keep it growing and expanding and responding to the life 
around him as he rises into manhood, must result in ruin 
to the individual and to the community. No interest 
should engross him which displaces interest in his fellows. 



Among Ourselves. 39 

No attainment in scholarship or statesmanship outweighs 
love and devotion to the interests of humanity. That 
man, that teacher, serves the world best who hears the 
cry of distress before it is uttered and who counts its relief 
the manliest act that he can perform. 

English. Here is what Professor Hart of Cornell 
University says of the most vital subject in American 
intellectual life — vital because it is the principal medium 
through which truth is conveyed from soul to soul : 

" The school is to give the most thorough training in 
English, not merely, not even chiefly, because such train- 
ing is needed in college, but because such training is the 
vital and informing spirit of all education. The school 
is to do its duty by all its scholars, whether they afterward 
go to college or not, because the ability to state one's 
knowledge in clear and proper English is the one unfailing 
test of knowledge, the one universally recognized badge 
of scholarship. Why should the study of English be thus 
set on a pinnacle, as it were, dominating all other studies ? 
Or, in the serio-comic words of a professor of the classics, 
why should the English department have the veto power ? 
I can answer only in the form of a paradox : The study of 
English should dominate everything else precisely because 
ii is not a study but the acquisition of a habit, of an art, 
of an indispensable gift. This acquisition can not be 
hurried through with a year or less of special ' cram ' ; it 
implies slow, patient, unremitting effort year after year, 
under incessant supervision and correction. It is em- 
phatically anything but an easy process for the average 
scholar. It means the appreciation of synonyms in a 



4° Among Ourselves. 

language singularly rich in shades of meaning but singu- 
larly defective in the outward signs by which to recognize 
them. It means the appreciation of word-order in a 
language which has little or no syntax proper, and in 
which word-order counts for nearly everything. Above 
all, it means the implanting and cultivation of the sense 
of form in young persons to whom, or to the greater 
number of whom, form, that is, the saying of a thing 
properly and effectively, is an unknown quantity." 

If we study nature in books, when we go out of doors 
we cannot find her. — Agassiz. 

Stick to your frog, if you are studying frogs, and he 
will teach you more about the science of animals than can 
be learned from all the memorized classifications that you 
can bracket out on a hundred rods of blackboard ! — David 
Starr Jordan. 

To Be ! A ministerial friend of mine occupying a most 
desirable pulpit under the shadow of one of the great 
universities of the country was called to his present posi- 
tion not so much on account of what he was, but rather 
on account of what he was going to be. The university 
authorities could not find a man of mature life who in 
their opinion could meet the demands of that pastorate, 
so they chose a comparatively young man, whose vigorous 
brain and bounding blood were giving promise of great 
things. They set about to train him for their service, and 
now he is already their leader, trusted and worthy. Many 
school boards and churches could profit by this little 
story. 



Among Ourselves. 4 r 

The True. If Plato be right in saying that the beauti- 
ful is the splendor of the true, then that philosophy of the 
beautiful which ignores its ethical basis is superficial and 
misleading. It also follows that aesthetic emotions are 
best aroused as the moral emotions are healthy and 
vigorous. People often wonder at the moral obliquity of 
many talented musicians, when all agree that music is 
heaven-born. Artists, at whose touch the dull canvas 
becomes a thing of radiant life, lead an erratic and dis- 
solute existence. Poets, who give form and speech to the 
subtlest emotions of the soul, are strangers to the simple 
faith of the peasant. Seeing these things, many parents 
look upon music and art and poetry, with all of their kith 
and kin, as emissaries of the evil one. They fail to see 
the distinction between art as an end and art as an 
expression of an idea — an idea which must be even more 
beautiful than the thing expressing it. They do not note 
that the very fascination which art possesses even for the 
immoral is due to its birth in the true. Nothing is ethical 
which is not beautiful, and nothing is beautiful which has 
not the similitude of the good and the true. Ethical 
longings get their highest satisfaction in the aesthetic 
emotions. When all education recognizes this relation, 
then many of the difficulties in the management of children 
will disappear. 

Than St. Mark's or Vesuvius. A friend of mine, in 
the midst of an entertaining letter from Italy, suddenly 
stops describing the beauties of Venice, of Florence, and 
of the Imperial city, to relate a short conversation with a 
little girl whose merry prattle had attracted his attention. 



4 2 Among Ourselves, 

As he closes the incident he apologizes for mentioning it 
and explains that he turns aside from the piles of marble, 
the temples and palaces, the volcanoes and mummies, the 
lovely landscapes of rare Italy, to this little child, and 
finds her more interesting than them all ! And what true 
heart does not say, amen! There is nothing in all God's 
wonderful creation, in all earth, or air, or sky, so marvel- 
ously formed as this little creature, fashioned after His 
own image. The study of chemistry, with its revelation 
of the subtle forces that lock and unlock the elements in 
their ever-changing forms; the study of geology, with its 
strange and thrilling story of the building of land and sea, 
of the mighty cataclysms by which the mountains were 
made; the study of astronomy, with its dazzling and 
bewildering visions of unnumbered celestial worlds; — each 
and all together are, with their companion sciences, 
engaging the time and labor of a multitude of devoted 
lovers, but these all sooner or later discover their unity in 
the Mind of which the child is the image. It then 
becomes again the most interesting of all the themes in 
human experience. Are we teachers realizing as we 
ought the dignity of our calling and the nobility of the 
child that invites us to its study ? 

Watch the Machinery ! As we were driving past a 
field in which a mower was doing poor work, a farmer 
said to me: " My neighbor has many mishaps with his 
machinery and his repair bill is a great item of expense 
each year. I have more machinery than he, but it costs 
me little to keep it in repair." " Why the difference ? " 
I asked. He replied: " / always watch my 7nachinery. If 



Among Ourselves. 43 

a nut comes loose, I see it and tighten it before it falls 
off; if a bolt breaks, it is at once replaced; if a belt begins 
to give way, it is spliced ; if a bar is bent, it is straightened 
at noontime; if a journal gets hot easily, it is promptly 
adjusted; if the cog wheels make too much noise, they 
are equalized: and so I seldom have a serious mishap." 
His machines are always in order, they run easily, they 
do good work, and as a result he is always in good humor 
himself. Not so with his neighbor. He repairs his 
machines when they will run no longer. A jar or a rattle is 
nothing to him, and when the crisis comes he has the bill 
to pay. His temper is in keeping with his machines and 
he is eternally grumbling about the way things are going. 
If there be a school-teacher who cannot see the applica- 
tion of the above, he ought to surrender his certificate and 
— buy afar?n! 

Re-create. In teaching pupils to sing, Superintendent 
Powell strives to develop the impulse to re-create every- 
thing they utter — to appropriate what they meet and then 
to express it as their own. It is the old principle of 
putting yourself in the author's place, seeing what he saw, 
feeling what he felt, and then speaking as he spoke; but 
it has a wider significance, in that it tends to the develop- 
ment of the pupil's own resources, to the quickening of 
his impulses to self-activity, to habits of original thinking 
and acting. What though the efforts are crude at first, 
what though he makes many blunders in thought and 
form, they are vastly better than any parrot-like imitation 
or repetition of author or of teacher. One day the indi- 
viduality will succeed in expressing itself in such a fresh 



44 Among Ourselves. 

and original way that some people will think a man has 
come to town ! 

Whose Fault? Statistics show that from 80 to 85 per 
cent of the children in the public schools drop out before 
reaching the high school. Somebody is to blame for it. 
Is it you ? Is it I ? Is it all of us ? Is it the system ? 
If you are not interesting the children in their work, nor 
helping them to glimpses of the attractive storehouses of 
knowledge beyond, then yours is the blame. If I am not 
widening their vision, not begetting keener appetites for 
beauty and truth, then I am at fault. If all of us are not 
exalting the manhood and womanhood of generous culture 
and are not constantly drawing the children to us and to 
it, then the condemnation comes to all. If the system 
does not reach the various sides of the child nor tend to 
bring him into harmony with the ideal life, then the system 
needs readjusting at once. I have a lurking little sus- 
picion that the fault may lie in any of these and that a 
little more devotion to one's own sphere and work will 
soon show a great change in the attendance at our high 
schools. It is said of a certain ward principal in Kansas 
City that nearly every single pupil completing the work in 
his building entered the high school, while often a small 
per cent entered from many other wards. The contagious, 
unflagging, irresistible enthusiasm and tact of the prin- 
cipal affected alike teachers and pupils. Shall we not go 
and do likewise ? 

Shall Teachers Dye ? In speaking of a certain candi- 
date recently, a member of a school board said: "I 
quickly made up my mind about him. He had evidently 



Among Ourselves. 45 

dyed his beard and his hair before interviewing us, and I 
prefer a natural man." So say we all of us. There may 
be a reason for the use of dye stuffs, but its meaning on 
a man's face is just as evident as on his clothes and he 
ought not to expect it to pass where fresh and bright 
goods are in competition. 

The Architect of the Divine. Not the Divine Archi- 
tect, but the architect of the divine. William Hawley- 
Smith says he visited a magnificent high- school building 
which he failed to examine because he had only time to 
visit the recitations. He said, of course buildings and. ap- 
paratus " are all well enough and we must have more or 
less of them; but you know there are houses not made with 
hands that are greater than hands have ever made; and 
to see that possible architect of the divine — the teacher — 
actually at work upon the sacred materials he has to deal 
with — to see this any time and anywhere is a sight for 
gods and men." 

"Nobody Kisses Me!" A little girl almost within 
the shadow of the Normal building, said to a motherly 
neighbor the other day : " Nobody kisses me! Mamma is 
always too busy and my grandpa and grandma and my 
aunties spend so much time with other people that they 
do not have time to love me! " And with this she burst 
into an uncontrollable fit of weeping. Poor child! If 
in these tender years she is denied the caresses of those 
she holds most dear, how cold and dreary must all life 
seem to her; how dwarfed and stunted must be all of those 
nobler emotions which spring from loving and being loved. 
Whoso offendeih one of these little ones, offendeth me also ! 



4 6 Among Ourselves. 

Eternal Vigilance. A letter came to the office the 
other day from one of the promising young principals of 
the State. He took pains to educate himself for his work, 
is popular with his pupils and patrons, and is ambitious 
for promotion, but this letter given to the public would 
drive him from almost any position in Kansas. What was 
the matter with it ? Only this, in two pages he had made 
several egregious mistakes in capitalization, violated 
nearly as many rules of grammar, ignored or misused 
punctuation marks ad libitum, ad infinitum. He can only 
maintain his standing by being continually watchful of 
every detail, even the most minute. These little things — 
they are not little things — reveal the character of the man 
more truly than he imagines, not necessarily the man as 
he now is, but as he soon will be, if he continues to be 
careless. 

Let the Child Gape. The other day a little girl in 
front of my pew innocently gaped during the sermon. In 
her anxiety to have the child do everything properly, the 
mother gently patted the little mouth shut. I was pleased 
at her tenderness and yet could not but think how over- 
anxious she was in noticing such a trifle and what a mis- 
take she was making in suppressing that quiet little effort 
at relief which the child's comfort imperatively demanded. 
It but illustrates many cases, however, and it too often 
happens that the reproof is very harshly administered. 
For very innocent and most natural actions children are 
constantly being humiliated and punished by thoughtless 
parents and teachers. Recent investigations show that in 
a great majority of a long list of cases of punishments, the 



Among Ourselves. 47 

offenses were of the most trivial nature, many of which 
should never be noticed at all. Scores of times have I 
seen children sent out of the room crying because of an 
unreasonable whim, or a puerile notion of propriety that 
suddenly possessed the head of the family. Let us not 
forget that children are children and must be permitted to 
act as children. Be watchful of the essentials, even in 
little things, but do at least let the five-year-olds gape 
occasionally, if they wish. 

The Curfew Tolls ! This old-time custom is rapidly 
reviving, and many towns throughout the West have found 
it a helpful way to keep the hoodlums off the street after 
nine o'clock at night. The street has always been a 
school of vice, but the street at night is the anteroom to 
the worst place named in the dictionary. Why parents 
permit boys and even girls to mingle night after night 
with its filthy, foul-mouthed rabble cannot be explained. 
There are some good boys on the streets some times at 
night, but the regular frequenters may be put down at 
once in the doubtful column. Alas, some homes are no 
better for the children, but in many of them, they at 
once go to sleep which is some consolation anyhow. So 
favorable are the testimonies of citizens in cities where the 
ordinance is in force that all good people ought to urge 
its adoption everywhere. Let the curfew toll ! 

Time for the Boys. The other day I was conversing 
with a father, a farmer, about his boys. All of them had 
been studious and ambitious, several of them going 
through college and into the learned professions. He 
said : " I will tell you the secret of it all; my wife always 



4-8 Among Ourselves. 

had time to answer their questions. No matter how busy 
or tired she was, no matter how many questions they had 
asked during the day, from the moment they could raise 
an interrogation point until they were off to college, she 
found time to. answer every question even about the most 
trivial thing, carefully, kindly, and intelligibly. Their 
mother has always been ready to plan and to talk with 
them and they have always prized her counsels." How 
many fathers have failed to do this themselves for their 
boys. In how many homes do the inquiries of the 
children secure nothing but ridicule and rebuff. Curiosity 
and wonder, without which every child must remain a 
dunce, are brutally stifled and suppressed at every turn 
until the children get wise enough to ask no questions 
and to smother even the longing for the affection and 
confidence of those who brought them into the world. 
Is it any wonder that such parents are disappointed 
in their children ? Better take time for the children. 
You must do it sooner or later. If not when they are 
prattling about your knees, you will do it as they grow 
into their teens and into manhood and womanhood in 
sleepless nights, in long and bitter hours of anxiety and 
remorse. 

Possibility and Recognition. Great possibilities and 
grand privileges are not uncommon, they are indeed very 
frequent and general — the rule rather than the exception. 
Possibility and privilege is one thing, recognition of them 
through gaining real success and true greatness and 
creditable distinction is quite another thing. Many a 
one who thinks he has never had a chance has had a mul- 



Among Ourselves. 49 

titude of chances, but did not recognize them and take 
possession. If all who hear my words would use rightly 
their talents, would develop possibility, would accept the 
promises and obey the injunctions, the roll call of the 
eternities would show a long list of the great, the worthy, 
the distinguished, and the successful in this company. 
Great are the chances, the openings, the opportunities — 
such are the universal laws of life, but only the fully 
worthy, the genuinely noble, the truly holy, the rich in 
godliness are able to triumph gloriously and possess the 
things that last forever. God uses men, but those alone 
who are in harmony with the conditions, who are willing 
to put themselves into the proper attitude of usefulness, 
who are able to be sincere in fidelity and thus carry out 
the laws of God in the gaining of things of value, eternity 
and indestructibility. " Many are called but few are 
chosen," not because many are not desired, nor necessary 
to the great work of the world, but because the few alone 
are ready and respond to the call. Heed the call, be 
ready for the service, prepare for great things, is the 
proclamation of the King of Kings, the Maker of destiny 
— the Rewarder of the upright in heart. — Dr. H. H m 
Seerly. 

The Heart of Gold. 

" A sunbeam, sunk in the black pond, told 
Of the sky so blue with its heart of gold, 
Till out of that black pond's ooze and mould 
Sprang the lily white with its heart of gold," 

Had the sky no heart of gold, neither the lily nor its 



50 Among Ourselves. 

heart of gold would rise in pond or strean. A lesson is 
here for every teacher that will stop a moment to think. 

"The Boys Were Gentlemen. " The highest compli- 
ment ever paid to the gentle, the wise-hearted Gerson was 
that, after he had gone, the common people were wont to 
say : "The boys were gentlemen in Gerson's day." Re- 
flecting upon this, I wonder whether this same record 
might not be worthy the ambition of any teacher. As one's 
work is done, to have the assurance that the children under 
his care have not only grown wiser and stronger, but that 
they have also grown truer, nobler, gentler, is compensation 
enough for a life of toil and sacrifice. Confidentially, how 
is it with the children in your schoolroom these days? 
Are the boys gentlemen and the girls ladies ? 

That Bath-tub. Following close upon the action of 
the Chicago School Board, the Boston board, "after a 
heated discussion," has decided to introduce the bath in 
one of its schools as an experiment. Children who come 
to school unwashed or poorly washed are to be turned into 
the bath until the proper grade of cleanliness is attained. 
That a Boston child should be insulted by the suggestion 
of the need of a bath has roused the old spirit of the revo- 
lution, and hence the bitter protest of the common people. 
But the school board is right. The health of teachers and 
pupils alike demands the bath-tub with hot water, " Pear- 
line," and crash towels, for children who do not have such 
luxuries at home. Filth is the breeder of all kinds of 
loathsome diseases and it has no place in the schoolroom. 

The Teacher's Ubiquity. The Eureka Herald says a 
city teacher recently found it necessary to give a small boy 



Among Ourselves. 51 

a " little talking to " for stealing an apple. He was very 
repentant and was evidently sorry for the offense. The 
teacher, in order to make the lesson a little more impress- 
ive, asked him this question : " Who sees you at the time 
and takes note of your misdoings?" The little fellow, in 
a tearful, trembling voice, replied: "You do ! " Many 
a boy or girl has a similar notion of his teacher, and it is 
not a bad reputation for the teacher to have. If the child 
thinks the teacher is pretty sure to discover his sin, it proves 
a great help to resist the temptation. Later, the strength 
gained enables him to resist from higher motives. Many 
teachers fail in government because they are not every- 
where with their pupils and not always awake to their fail- 
ures as well as their needs. 

" Only Eight Months of School." " Well, the city is 
out of money and we must do the nine months' work in 
eight." Just so! But the school-teachers will then be 
out of money too, I suppose. Would it not be better for 
each of the four or five hundred tax-payers to pay three or 
four dollars apiece extra to continue the school nine months 
rather than that each of the thirty teachers should be asked 
to accept from forty to fifty dollars less for the year's work, 
thus practically making the taxes of each just that much ? 
But the injustice is even greater to the children, for that 
extra month's work is necessary in order that the most of 
them may properly maintain their class standing and com- 
plete the course. Just such a reduction as this discour- 
ages and drives out of the schoolroom many of our best 
teachers and sets adrift hosts of boys and girls who other- 
wise would be found at their posts. I know that such a 



52 Among Ourselves. 

reduction sometimes seems a necessity, but more often it 
may be avoided by wise planning and a very little sacrifice 
on the part of the patrons. 

Where Has Curiosity Gone ? For the first five years 
of a child's life everything has interest for him. He is so 
eager to learn that he can often keep two or three people 
busy investigating and answering his questions. He carries 
much of this same longing into the schoolroom, bilt how 
soon it is nearly all gone ! How soon does he lack all 
interest and how soon it is necessary to drive him to his 
tasks ! — Tasks ! Ah, that is now the proper word to use ! 
But what has become of all that glowing, that irrepressible 
wonder which was never satisfied until the tired eyes closed 
in sleep ? Who is responsible for it ? Wherein has the 
teacher failed to adjust himself to the child so as to increase 
and magnify this thirst to know? I entered a room re- 
cently where the children were taxing the resources and 
ingenuity of the teacher to meet their multitudinous appeals 
for information, while in the same building the pupils of 
another teacher were inattentive and stupid beyond belief. 
Each was responsible for the condition of her pupils and 
each was getting her reward. The first found joy in her 
work ; the second found drudgery in it, nothing more. 

Love Them ! " What shall I do to my seventy little 
foreigners that roll into my schoolroom every morning ? 
They speak fourteen different languages and their faces and 
clothes are covered with even a greater variety of dirt. 
They are as turbulent as so many little pigs, and I am con- 
stantly at my wits' end to know what to do with them." 
So said a young teacher to me two years since. I replied: 



Among Ourselves. 5$ 

11 Love them /" She laughed and said: "I have been 
doing that, and they all love me dearly, but that is a 
little thing to do." And yet it was the greatest thing she 
was doing, for out of her love sprang a thousand little 
devices whereby she might serve the children, and coming 
spontaneously, unselfishly, it proved helpful beyond any 
ken of hers. So she worked away, loving them and serv- 
ing them and making sunshine for them and teaching them 
to serve each other, and one day she was surprised by a call 
to a larger city and better pay. Here she works as earnestly 
as ever, and here the children love her just the same ; but 
I often wonder whether they need her as much as those 
" seventy little foreigners " who drew so strongly on her 
affection and patience. The more loveless the lives of the 
children, the more we need to love them. 

" Not a Candidate for reelection" — Why not? 
". Because I have already served two terms as county super- 
intendent, and the prejudice against a third term is so 
strong that I do not care to ask my friends for their sup- 
port further. " There are probably twenty or thirty just 
such county superintendents in Kansas to-day who have 
been eminently successful in their offices and who by virtue 
of their experience and acquaintance with the schools of 
the county would be two or three times as valuable as any 
other man could possibly be, and yet, on account of this 
foolish sentiment, are set aside for an untried man or woman. 
If it did not mean such a great loss to the teachers and the 
children of the county, we might be content ; but in their 
name we raise our protest and urge the friends of the 
schools everywhere to rise in their might and right this 



54 Among Ourselves. 

great wrong. Little permanent improvement can be made 
in the schools of a county as long as these frequent changes 
in the superintendent occur. That county or that city 
which has attained to any efficiency or to any eminence in 
the educational world has reached it by the wise guidance 
of a single man, and not by a constant change of men. 
There is neither educational nor business sense in this 
" anti-third-term " cry, at least so far as it pertains to the 
superintendency. We have been deploring it long enough. 
If the teachers will demand, with practical unanimity, the 
renomination of competent and faithful superintendents, 
the politicians will readily yield to us. The next election 
is not too far ahead for us to begin to agitate the question 
now. 

Character. A teacher whose school is made up of 
" odds and ends," writes me asking for a definition of 
character. It may be denned as the sum of all the ele- 
ments that go to make up the individual, his knowledge, 
his disposition, his habits, his temperament, his motives, 
his standard of right, his ambitions. Accordingly any- 
thing that could be truthfully said of him would be raming 
some element in his character. It may be good, bad, or 
indifferent, but it is character just the same. Character is 
very different from reputation, the former being what a 
man is, and the latter, what he is thought to be. So a 
man of bad character may have a fine reputation, and one 
whose life is as pure as that of an angel, be regarded with 
suspicion by many people. Reputation often has great 
commercial or social value, hence it is a common thing for 
people to be more solicitous about it than about their 



Among Ourselves. 55 

character. In the long run, however, character and rep- 
utation are usually in accord, for the time at last comes 
when one's real character becomes known to all. Take 
care of the character and the reputation will sooner or later 
take care of itself. The same teacher wishes to know 

" What are the Conditions of its growth and develop- 
ment." A volume is necessary to answer this question. 
Any condition will develop character, such as it is, but for 
the development of character in the noblest and best sense 
of the word, a healthy, Christian home is the first and most 
important requisite. No other forces combine so effec- 
tively to awaken the sense of respect for others, the spirit 
of self-sacrifice, the impulse to serve one's fellow men, 
true ideas of justice, and lofty conceptions of manhood. 
The love and sympathy and mutual confidence, and the 
infinite forbearance of such a home, combined with the 
purity and sacredness of its atmosphere, as naturally pro- 
duce exalted characters as sunshine and moisture and rich 
loam produce towering oaks and sturdy elms. Character 
is a growth, and these quiet forces slowly but effectually 
evolve it. Next to the home, a good school embodying 
as many of the features of the ideal home as possible, sup- 
plies an essential condition. Good companions and good 
books are auxiliaries of incalculable value. 

" Are They Self -existent in the child or can they be 
created in the school? " This question is already partly 
answered. Capacity for development is necessary. A 
child with sense enough to learn anything, furnishes the 
subjective condition. A little acquaintance with him will 
soon discover his intellectual bias, his emotional tendency, 



56 Among Ourselves. 

and his control of himself. A knowledge of what may be 
expected of a normal child is just as essential as a knowl- 
edge of this particular child, for thus only can a fair idea 
of the work of teacher or parent be obtained. The objec- 
tive conditions should be provided in the school ; they 
are to be found in the subjects taught, in the way they are 
taught and the resultant habits in the child, in the man- 
agement of the school, and above all in the character 
and the spirit of the teacher. I can conceive of nothing 
in the way of surroundings, in the books provided, in 
the physical condition of the schoolroom, in the method 
and the manner of the teacher, that does not contribute its 
part in determining what the child shall be. Neatness and 
order, promptness and system, thoroughness and persever- 
ance, truth and sympathy in the schoolroom always be- 
come more or less fully a part of the child. 

" What is Your Method of building up a strong char- 
acter? " Believing as I do that the chief function of the 
teacher is simply to produce continually certain favorable 
and stimulating conditions, for arousing the child's activi- 
ties, I would set about at once to provide the conditions 
already suggested, in the fullest possible measure. They 
are the permanent factors always at work and always co- 
operating with the various forces which come into the life 
of the child with each new experience. If the teacher 
now comes into close personal relationship with the pupil, 
even to the exchange of friendly confidences, a further 
powerful factor has also been introduced, victory already 
being assured. To discriminate readily between right and 
wrong, to find pleasure only in doing the right, and to be 



s4mong Ourselves. 57 

able to follow the behests of the better self are the elements 
making up the ideal character. A well-trained intellect 
is, then, just as necessary as a well-trained will. The two 
must always be conserving each other, the emotions con- 
tinually stimulating their cooperation. The needs of each 
child being known, every little experience, every bit of 
real life, every lesson story, every tale of self-denial, of 
sorrow, of struggle, of defeat, of victory, of justice, of ret- 
ribution, may be utilized to clarify his notion of right and 
to awaken impulses to right doing. Never-failing sympathy, 
abundant patience, little chiding, frequent encouragement, 
wise management of the little things, never fail in bringing 
satisfactory results. Keep close to the child and one day 
he will keep close to you and to your ideals. 

Potato Tercentenary. (1896.) As we are enjoying 
our Thanksgiving festivities the tercentenary of the intro- 
duction of the potato into Ireland by Sir Walter Raleigh is 
being celebrated by the Irish people. Tubers Peach Blow, 
tubers Peerless, tubers Early Rose, tubers Beauty of Heb- 
ron, tubers Neshannock, tubers St. Patrick, tubers Snow- 
flake, and tubers galore are on the exhibit tables of the 
Irish Gardeners' Association vying with their cousins and 
their uncles and their aunts in doing honor to the name of 
Sir Walter. " The exact spot where the blessed plant 
took root and blossomed to become forever after the 
prized product of Irish and European soil," will be cov- 
ered with garlands and made more sacred in the eyes of 
Emerald's sons than ever before. In bringing the little 
tuber to Europe, Raleigh strangely but forever united his 
name with the destinies of the two continents, "an alii- 



58 Among Ourselves. 

ance of prose and poetry" which will make his name 
memorable when his other deeds will long have been for- 
gotten. This bit finds a place here to enable me to say 
that at no other time could such interest be aroused in the 
study of this great staple, the most common, the most pal- 
atable, the most wholesome of all the vegetable foods that 
come to the tables of the Anglo-Saxon, the Teutonic, and 
the Celtic races. Its history always reads like a fairy tale, 
but at such a time as this it glows with added interest, par- 
ticularly to the young. The wide-awake teacher takes 
advantage of such anniversaries and celebrations to give 
them reality and significance which ordinary days fail to 
emphasize. What an event in history ! What a mighty 
cargo of provisions for the oncoming millions did Sir 
Walter carry in the curious root-stocks as he returned to 
his old home that November in 1596 ! 

The Difference between a good and a fairly good 
teacher, to say nothing of a bad one, is incalculable, but, 
like all things of the soul, inappreciable to the general 
public. — G. Stanley Hall. 

" Some sow the seed and sit and wait 
For suns to shine and rains to fall 
And mourn the harvest comes so late, 
Or fear it will not come at all. 
" Some, single-minded, still work on, 
Nor stop to ask or understand ; 
The rose-bloom of success is won, 
And harvests ripen at their hand." 

Finish Every Day and be done with it. You have 
done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no 



Among Ourselves. 59 

doubt, crept in ; forget them as soon as you can. To- 
morrow is a new day ; begin it well and serenely, and 
with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old non- 
sense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too 
dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment 
on the yesterdays. — Emerson. 

Always Sunshine. "You will always find her room 
full of sunshine. That is the reason her children love her 
so ! " Exactly ! There is no day in the year, however 
gloomy it may be outside, but that you will find it bright 
and cheery within. The rays are not sun's rays, but rays 
coming from her warm heart and her cheery face, rays 
that will penetrate any gloom and transform the most com- 
mon-place room into a fairy's bower. 

" What You Put In ! " A favorite educational prin- 
ciple just now is that one gets out of every experience just 
what he reads into it. A friend to-day said that " we get 
out of children just what we put into them — they respond 
in kind." The truth is that the larger part of the child's 
life is of this responsive character, and skill in presenting 
the stimuli determines not only the nature of each indi- 
vidual response, but in due time the entire character of 
the child. Heredity and imitation have their propor- 
tionate influence, but here is the far greater reason why 
children are so much like their parents. The difficulty in 
managing children is not so much in the children as in 
ourselves. 

Merry Outside, but! "That teacher is one of the 
merriest young women in all my acquaintance, at home or 
in the social circle, but the moment she steps into the 



60 Among Ourselves. 

schoolroom she becomes as rigid as an iceberg and does 
not relax during the day ! I have tried to break her of the 
habit, but have failed." So said a zealous superintendent 
to me recently. Any one who has taught school can un- 
derstand that an emotion with such a tendency comes to 
all of us as we stand at the teacher's desk for the first few 
times, but many of us also know that we are heavily handi- 
capped until we succeed in throwing it off entirely. This 
intense self consciousness ruins work and destroys that 
spontaneous reciprocal action between teacher and pupil, 
which is the charm of all true school-keeping. 

Scrub Out ! The Chicago school board is just now 
making some radical changes in methods of caring for 
school buildings. Hear what it says : "The sanitary care 
of the school buildings is in keeping with the knowledge, 
or rather ignorance, that obtained twenty years ago in 
matters of hygiene, germ theory, and germ propagation." 
Says Dr. Stewart Johnstone : " Our present knowledge in 
this premise would call for a modern system of ventilation 
and the scrubbing of floors with a disinfected solution at 
least once a week, as well as walls so finished that they 
could be gone over with a disinfectant as frequently. I 
am persuaded that improved care of these public rooms 
would lead to great diminution of all infectious diseases in 
both children and adults." 

Grade Yourself ! I am now receiving from the teach- 
ers' agencies the following confidential inquiries about 
teachers referring to me. Grade yourself on these points : 

(a) Scholarship (thorough, good, or only fair) ? 

(b) Could teacher have remained in any position he has 



Among Ourselves. 61 

occupied had he so desired? If not, why? Has there 
been a failure, or a partial failure, in any position? If so, 
for what cause? Can he retain his present position? 
Why does he leave ? If you had a position open in your 
school such as he seeks, would you engage him? 

(c) Are you confident teacher could manage success- 
fully a very difficult room ? Has he never failed in disci- 
pline ? 

(d) Does he use tobacco? Liquor? Play cards? 
Dance? Use profane or obscene language? Has his 
character ever been questioned ? Is he of a quarrelsome 
disposition ? Member of any church ? What church, if 
any? 

(e) , Neat and becoming in dress? Any unpleasant 
mannerisms? Any peculiarities or eccentricities which in 
any measure disqualify him for a position ? Voice gentle, 
well modulated, or harsh? Cultured, or comparatively 
indifferent to social requirements? Refined, polite, or in- 
different, gruff, or b rusk ? Conversational ability? Use 
good English ? 

(_/") Single or married ? 

Politics Not All. At the State Teachers' Association, 
one of the speakers insisted that politics should be a part 
of the school work, for "it is that only which makes 
history." The idea is no less erroneous than the old one 
which imagined history to be simply a recitation of wars. 
We thought that teachers generally are now agreeing that 
both of these subjects are but a small part of the real his- 
tory of the world. No work on history is now acceptable 
anywhere which does not magnify and exalt those great 



62 Among Ourselves. 

movements in human history compared with which poli- 
tics and wars are scarcely worthy of mention — the rise 
and growth of the world's great industries, its commerce, 
its literature, its art, its religion, its morals, its educational 
systems, the development of its natural resources, etc., etc. 
Come, brother, wake- up ! 

The Rugby Way. The Master, in speaking to the 
boys about the Doctor's way of introducing reforms, offers 
a good hint for us all. He said the Doctor quietly, 
naturally puts a "good thing in the place of the bad, let- 
ting the bad die out ; no wavering and no hurry — the 
best thing that can be done for the time being and no 
hurry for the rest." This is in sharp contrast with the 
bluster and impatience so frequently manifested in certain 
superintendents and principals even in our day. 

With a Withe ! " Mary whipped Henry with a 
withe," said the speaker, and thirty school-teachers had to 
go to the dictionary to discover whether he pronounced 
the last three words correctly. Try it yourself and consult 
the International. 

Quit It ! It is high time to stop making fun of the 
children's efforts at writing in rhyme or prose about the 
beautiful snow and about spring. There is a time in life 
when every child naturally wishes to say something about 
both, and he is entitled to the privilege, just as you were. 
It is a part of his development and ought to be encouraged. 
More, the immortal poem about each is to be written yet, 
and many millions of people must make the effort before 
it is done. Shortly before Tennyson died, he thought it 
not beneath his great genius to write an Ode to Spring. 



Among Ourselves. 65 

Hard Times. One of the young men of the University 
writes me that the work of the students has greatly im- 
proved since he was there several years ago. He believes 
it to be the result of the hard times. '• Formerly many 
of the boys and girls felt that their parents had plenty of 
money, and they could just as well have a good time while 
the opportunity offered, but now they see the necessity of 
economizing and of anticipating their entrance into real 
life. They now give a great deal more thought about what 
they are going to do when they finish their college course. 
What blessings may sometimes follow- seeming adversity!" 
This is but a repetition of the true story everywhere. 
Fathers and mothers too frequently mourn because they 
cannot supply their children with plenty of money, when 
in many cases it would be their ruin. These hard times 
may have their sorry side, — they also have much of com- 
fort. They stimulate endeavor and make men where pros- 
perity makes pigmies. Blessed be hard times ; for they 
sooner or later bring us true prosperity. 

Then and Now. In speaking of the introduction to the 
new course of study proposed for the Kansas schools, a 
leading teacher said, "That could not have been read intel- 
ligently by the teachers twenty years ago. ' ' Which remark 
reminds us that at that time there were very few teachers 
in the public schools who pretended to know anything 
about psychology, particularly as related to education, and 
that a far less number had any acquaintance with a work on 
teaching with any philosophic basis. About that time the 
translation of Rosenkranz's Pedagogics began to put life 
into the dry bones, and the leaves on the mulberry began 



66 Among Ourselves 



to shake a little. Some pioneers had struck out into the 
new field, and many teachers were doing ' ' a sight of think- 
ing," but they were exceeding wary of any book even 
slightly sprinkled with metaphysical terms. Since then 
books have multiplied so rapidly that the bibliography of 
education makes a great volume itself; terms then strange 
and ponderous have become as familiar as household words ; 
the educational problem has shifted around a dozen times ; 
and now there are few teachers in any locality who are 
willing to acknowledge that they have not heard of the 
change that has come over the schoolmaster, at least by par- 
cels if not distinctly. For a half dozen years the giants have 
been disputing over the meaning and application of a few 
terms coming prominently forward with the Herbartian 
psychology, and they are now moving on to other questions 
of great attractiveness, and, possibly of greater importance. 
The average teacher can no longer afford to be abashed in 
the presence of these terms, and for their sakes we attempt 
a simple explanation of a few of them. 

Apperception. Robbed of its metaphysical cloak, it is 
simply the process by which the mind interprets a new ex- 
perience by bringing to bear upon it the knowledge gained 
in past experiences. Everything one learns becomes a part 
of his mental mechanism, and as it becomes organized into 
himself, this new self, with each recurring experience in- 
terprets and gives it a meaning which is always colored and 
determined by the effect past experience, past knowledge, 
has had upon the self. The principle has long been rec- 
ognized, but not generally well defined; neither has its far- 
reaching function in education been understood by many. 



Among Ourselves. 67 

It has given startling emphasis to the idea that in all in- 
struction the psychological order, or the order in which a 
subject develops to each individual mind, must ever be 
paramount to the logical order. 

Concentration. This word shifts the view a little. It 
means rather the bringing of past related knowledge to bear 
upon a present experience, than of the self as organized as 
a result of past experience or past knowledge. It refers 
more specifically to the knowledge used than to the self. 
We may say that we apperceive by concentration. If 
there be no concentration, there is no apperception. 
Concentration is the means by which we apperceive. 
It is the process of applying self and what self knows to 
the understanding, the apperception of the present experi- 
ence. All of this being true, it is held by many that it is 
possible to arrange a course of study so related that each 
item of knowledge shall be so successfully anticipated by 
that which goes before, that a vast amount of time and 
labor shall be saved to the children, and that the educa- 
tional results shall be far more satisfactory than at present. 

Correlation. To do this, the interrelations of the 
various branches of learning must be discovered and the 
subjects so organized into a course of study that they will 
not only be mutually illuminating and stimulating each 
other, but that they will be arousing all sides of the child's 
activity and promoting the harmonious development of all 
his faculties. That there is such a relationship and de- 
pendence, no one disputes, but the extent to which it may 
be wrought, out in a general scheme of studies or in a prac- 
tical way in the schoolroom is the live educational problem. 



68 Among Ourselves. 

Correlation discovered arid expressed in a formal way 
without regard to the relation of the subjects to the de- 
mands of the growing mind would be of little value, but 
with these demands controlling, it will furnish invaluable 
aid in utilizing the principle of concentration in the school- 
room. 

Law of Congruence. This principle was given special 
prominence by the able report of Dr. B. A. Hinsdale 
to the National Council of Education in 1895. The 
natural and spontaneous tendency of certain muscles and 
of other parts of the physical organism to act in mutual 
accord, as well as a similar tendency on the part of the 
different mental faculties, suggests at once the idea that the 
work of education would be greatly simplified if this ten- 
dency were more generally recognized and its real nature 
better understood. Concentration will be profitable only 
when in accord with the laws of congruency. Nature will 
not be forced. She has her own ways of doing things, 
and man is most successful when he works in harmony 
with her. If he furnishes the conditions in the way and at 
the time she demands, she will do the rest, and her response 
will be in generous measure. The principle is just as true 
in the subjects of knowledge. There is a certain congru- 
ency, a definite way in which they come to reenforce each 
other, based upon the laws of association and suggestion, 
that must always dictate their arrangement in any course 
of study. The subtleness and delicacy of their interactions, 
and their dependence upon the particular state of the con- 
sciousness at the particular time at which they come in 
contact with it, make the problem of correlation one of 



Among Ourselves. 69 

the most difficult in all pedagogy. It is easy enough to pre- 
pare a scheme in which the different subjects are mechan- 
ically correlated, but the contingencies of congruency are 
so numerous that there must always be left room enough for 
its free play. So the laws of concentration and correlation 
are all subservient to the supreme law of congruency. 

" Over Their Heads ! " Teachers as well as preachers 
are frequently talking " over the heads " of their children, 
and consequently the little people lose interest and no 
profit comes. Recently a friend of mine talked very 
entertainingly to some children, and yet it was evidently 
of more interest to the older children than to the little 
people. In order to satisfy myself as to the effect which 
the talk had upon them, I asked one whose age was much 
above that of the average if he could give me the meaning 
of some of the words which my friend used. The follow- 
ing is the result : 

"Poise means boys;" "Triumph means to work 
harder;" " Swoop means something to drink;" "Wis- 
dom means smart; " " Discover means first one to find 
out;" "Provides means to give you;" "Microscope 
means look at through a glass." 

The boy said he did not know the meaning of victim, 
national emblem, rapidity, impressed, Assyrian, Babylon, 
vivid, and Isaiah. There were many words which I noted 
that I thought were too difficult for the children, that he 
defined very satisfactorily. There were others which I 
was satisfied he could not define, but they came too 
rapidly for me to note. The boy is a very intelligent 



70 Among Ourselves. 

little fellow and is considered by his teachers as more in- 
telligent than the other boys of his age. 

Anniversaries. Superintendent Gove, of Denver, 
issues an order to the principals of the several schools in 
that city to fly the national flag from sunrise to sunset on 
the opening and closing days of each term, on national 
and State holidays, and also upon the following named 
days: 

!8o9 — Feb. 12: Birthday of Lincoln. 

xy-p — Feb. 22: Birthday of Washington. 

1865 — April 9: Appomattox. 

1 775 — April 19: Battle of Lexington. 

1822 — April 27: Birthday of Grant. 

1789 — April 30: Inauguration of Washington and, 
1803, contract signed for the purchase of the Louisiana 
Territory. 

!6o7 — May 14: Founding of Jamestown. 

1844 — May 27: First telegraphic message. 

I777 — June 14: Adoption of the flag by Congress. 

1775 — June 17: Battle of Bunker Hill. 

j8o7 — Sept. 2: First trip of steamboat. 

! 783— Sept. 3: Treaty of Paris. 

1862— Sept. 22: Emancipation Proclamation. 

1492— Oct. 12: Columbus discovered America. 

1781 — Oct. 19: Cornwallis' surrender. 

1783— -Nov. 25: Evacuation of New York City by the 
British. 

1620— Dec. 22: Forefathers' Day. 

No Parting There! A teacher in Ohio, recently 
lectured her children on the subject of combing the hair 



Among Ourselves. 7* 

and incidentally severely condemned the habit of young 
men parting their hair in the middle. True to a peculiar 
instinct that comes spontaneously in some quarters, a 
dozen boys came to school next day with their hair care- 
fully parted in the middle. She invited them into the 
cloak-room one by one, and they came out properly 
balanced. Now the parents are siding with the boys and 
insist that their personal liberty has been infringed. A 
lawsuit is likely to follow. We hope the courts may 
decide this matter at once. There are certainly too many 
boys parting their hair in the middle and too many girls 
parting their hair on one side. If the habit is not soon 
suppressed* by the strong arm of the law, what awful 
results must follow! 

Punish at Leisure. By this I do not mean that we 
should punish leisurely, though that may be a good 
injunction. I mean that we should take plenty of time 
to consider the nature of the offense and of the punish- 
ment if any should be given. Too many people punish 
children upon the impulse of the moment and regret it 
afterward. All such punishments do more harm than 
good. The teacher as well as the pupil should be self- 
possessed and should thoroughly understand the matter 
before he is ready to administer any punishment. 

Expect the Best. We are probably all guilty of under- 
rating the capacity of our pupils, and they soon imagine 
that we do not expect much of them. Various reasons 
may be named, but the child usually acts as his experience 
teaches. When in college, my classmates and I usually 
prepared our lessons much better for a certain professor 



72 Among Ourselves. 

than for the others, because we knew he would not only 
expect the best from us but that he would be content with 
nothing else. Some of the other professors were disposed 
to accept plausible explanations of failures and were con- 
stantly inventing them themselves, or at least appeared to 
be doing so. If we are expecting the best things from 
our pupils, they naturally respond, and find pleasure in 
doing them. No boy or girl ever amounted to much in 
the schoolroom or out in the world who understood that 
little was expected of him. Hold high ideals before your 
pupils constantly and encourage them to strive for their 
realization. 

Time-keepers. C. P. Huntington, the great railroad 
magnate, says that even when a boy he noticed that some 
workmen were always watching the clock and that the 
moment it struck, they threw down their tools wherever 
they happened to be and adjourned for dinner. Others 
took a few moments to finish the work in hand so that it 
might suffer as little as possible, evidently thinking more 
of their work than of their dinner and their rest hour. 
He now asserts that these men who watched the clock are 
still watching it, while the others have attained unto a 
competency, and many of them to high and responsible 
positions in the world. If any one succeeds, his mind 
must be upon his work and not upon his meals. His 
constant desire must be to do something useful and not 
to spend his time in leisure. There are a multitude of 
school-teachers who are faithful enough in beginning and 
closing on time each day, but who do not find a moment 



Among Ourselves. 73 

outside the legal hours for serving their children, and for 
improving their work. They are merely time-keepers. 

Had Not Seen Him. Recently I happened to call at 
the desk of a principal who had just finished a letter to 
the father of a bad boy telling him that it would be neces- 
sary for him to be withdrawn from school. The principal 
kindly read the letter to me. A word in it interested me 
at once. I inquired of him whether he had seen the boy 
himself. He said that he had not seen him, but that his 
teacher had been laboring with him a long time and had 
exhausted all her resources. I took the liberty of suggest- 
ing that he had a personal responsibility himself and that 
he might be doing the boy a great wrong by suspending 
him without making an effort himself to reclaim him. 
The letter to the father was withheld and I have every 
assurance that it will never be sent. Principals and 
superintendents have a personal duty to perform which 
they are frequently overlooking. A little intelligent co- 
operation on their part will often prove most valuable to 
the subordinate teacher. The call to the superintendent's 
room puts a little more serious aspect upon the conduct 
of the pupil and impresses the necessity for immediate 
reformation. Of course all cases should not come to the 
principal, but because all should not come, it does not 
necessarily follow that none should come. 

Shall He Smoke ? The superintendent of Dolores 
county, Colorado, has refused to issue a certificate to 
teach to a graduate of the Toronto University, though he 
meets all scholastic requirements. She bases her refusal 
on the fact that he is an inveterate smoker and that the 



74 Among Ourselves. 

law requires teachers to give instruction on the evils 
resulting from the use of tobacco, which she thinks he 
cannot do. Probably he might serve as a concrete illus- 
tration, and would need to theorize very little about it. 
Her position will bring the matter before the state board 
of education and the question will soon be settled whether 
the coming teacher shall smoke. 

A CRY in the night; a lullaby song; 
A chase through the fields for a butterfly; 
Then musket-rattle, cannon, bell, and gong; 
And night again, and hands that wring good-by. 

— D. S. Landis. 

Benefits of Travel ! " Well, I don't see any difference 
between the people in Kansas and in Indiana; no Injuns 
yet," said a middle-aged lady as she stared at the 
natives crossing the street at Newton yesterday. A man 
responded : ' ' Why, no ; do you not remember that these 
people have all come from the East ? They are just as 
refined and live in just as comfortable homes as any in 
Posey county." After a long sigh, the old lady again 
exclaimed : " Well, I do say! Sidewalks here too! One 
learns many things on the cars that he cannot get out of 
books! " 

" Did Yer See My Name ? " "I rode over to St. Joe, 
t'other day, and wheeled up in style to the old Jesse 
James house and carved my name on it. Did yer see my 
name in the papers next day ? " With all the satisfaction 
of a hero, the boy leaned up against the depot and the 
others looked on him in admiration. Here was a school 
of three and here was a lesson that a whole week of con* 



Among Ourselves, 75 

scientious teaching by the most skilful teacher could not 
correct nor efface. In our plans for work in the home 
and in the schoolroom, we must not forget this other 
school and this other teacher that so easily touches the 
inner nature of the child and fills it with deadly virus. 
Talk about muzzling dogs to prevent their biting the 
children! Far greater gain would come, if we could but 
muzzle some of these teachers of the street ! 

Mr. Barber! "It was Mr. Barber, you know him, 
who first started us to try to get a better education. He 
talked to us boys and girls, and we have been at work ever 
since." So said the leader in a company of bright-faced 
young people who stood before me the other evening 
asking questions about the Normal. For three years he 
had been among them, and though he had gone to 
another field, they were still keenly eager for something 
better than they yet had known. I am free to say that I 
envied Mr. Barber a little just then, for no teacher could 
wish higher reward thin the quiet testimony of those 
high-school seniors to the quickening influence of his 
devoted life. God bless you, Mr. Barber! 

" Don't Take Home with You ! " In a window near 
the Union depot at Kansas City, among a medley of wares 
displayed, is a four-by-six envelope containing " four rich 
and racy photographs." In large type is the suggestive 
instruction, " Don't take home with you, however! " 
Well, where are they to be taken ? Certainly to no clean 
place; the devil knows best where! Is there no way of 
stopping this nefarious business ? Does Kansas City 
imagine that she can wink at such things and not always 



7 6 



Among Ourselves. 



be reaping the whirlwind ? Here is a good chance for 
her city papers, which have often proved a terror to evil- 
doers, to lead a reform. Clean out those show-windows. 
Put wholesome, inspiring pictures, pure and stimulating 
books in them and encourage the boys to seek the light 
rather than the dark. 

Jona Piper, an old-time fellow institute worker, ran in 
on us the other day. He is feeble in body, but clear in 
brain still. In a word in " 56 " he said: " This diagram 
shows the assistance the child needs in education. At a 
he is helpless, and the assistance he needs is represented 



bee 



ad/ 

by ab. As he grows in body and mind, he needs less and 
less of parent and teacher until at manhood, cd, he stands 
alone, free. As old age appears, he needs just a little 
help, then more and more, until he is helpless at/; and 
then, — all is over! " In his earlier years, Mr. Piper used 
but the rectangle abed, but now at seventy he adds cdef. 
A pathetic story that whole rectangle tells, and yet it is 
the history of every effort, of every triumph, of every life! 

The child-heart is so strange a little thing — 
So mild — so timorously shy and small 
When grown-up hearts throb, it goes scampering 
Behind the wall, nor dares peer out at all ! 



Among Ourselves. 77 

It is the veriest mouse 
That hides in any house — 
So wild a little thing is any child-heart ! 

Child-heart ! mild heart ! — 

Ho, my little wild heart ! 
Come up here to me out o' the dark, 
Or let me come to you ! 

— James Whitcoi?ib Riley. 

Slow in Starting. In my yard is a large rose-bush, 
loaded down with the most beautiful and fragrant roses in 
our corner. For several years that bush stood there 
obstinately refusing to grow. It was watered, and culti- 
vated, and fertilized, and yet responded only with a few 
sickly looking leaves and a warty little branch or two. 
Last summer it ran up and out so vigorously that it even 
outstripped some of its most hardy neighbors and now 
eclipses them all with its glorious June blushes. There 
are many children just like that rose. For some reason 
they sit stupidly among their fellows, apparently learning 
little and growing less, and yet one day they surprise 
everybody by their keen interest, their ready judgment, 
their wide grasp of details, their unsuspected powers. 
Do not overlook these slow ones. Many of the greatest 
men of all history did not wake up until they had passed 
the age when most others had done their best work. 

Always Do Your Best. Not many weeks ago, a friend 
of mine was urging a certain teacher for a position, when 
the response came, " I happen to know of her being 
called upon to do some work recently and there was 
nothing right about it." Her friend reported his recep- 
tion, when she burst into tears, saying she ' ' did not 



78 Among Ourselves. 

know that that work was of any importance." When 
shall we learn that anything which is worth doing at all, 
is worth doing well, and that the little things we are doing 
every day make up our reputation ? 

Try a New Spot ! Superintendent O. tells me that in 
driving mules over the plains, he found that in applying 
the whip to the same spot always, it soon had little effect, 
but that if he reached around to a fresh place, the mule 
promptly responded with a quicker pace. The principle 
holds good in the management of children. If we keep 
hammering away at one spot all the time, they are not 
affected, but if we change the point of attack they are 
easily aroused. Let us utilize this little bit of philosophy 
from the mule-driver. If one incentive fails, try another, 
and another. 

Dear, Dear, What Can the Matter Be ? The Atchison 
Globe says: " There is a new war-cloud in the sky, and 
sympathizers and opposers of slavery never took a more 
bitter part than is taken by those engaging in the 
skirmishes that prelude the first battle. It is a war 
between normal and university graduates, and the earth 
will soon be covered with torn-up diplomas, hair, and 
school books, and the sky spattered with blood before the 
fight ends. If you haven't seen the signs of an approach- 
ing storm, ask some school-teacher about it. If she is a 
high-school or university graduate, praise a normal 
graduate to her, and fizz! bang! will go the powder. 
It's awfully silly, but awfully real." 

Good Enough! A friend of mine, a county super- 
intendent, has a boy of six, who was permitted to go with 



Among Ourselves. 79 

him several times to visit schools. At one school he dis- 
covered several pupils evidently deceiving their teacher in 
the recitation. In his talk to the school afterward, the 
superintendent told the old story of the ass donning the 
lion's skin, laying special stress on the appearance of the 
ears which finally revealed the deception. One day after 
he had forgotten the incident, he mentioned the fact that 
he had a good many schools to visit and wondered how 
he was going to reach them all. Looking at his little tot, 
he said in a serious way, " Could you not visit some of 
them for me?" The boy said he could, and that he 
would ride the old mare while his father could take the 
buggy. "But," said the father, "you must make 
speeches, you know." Hesitating a moment, he replied 
that he thought he could do that, naming several little 
speeches he had committed. His father said none of 
them would be suitable, but at last with as much dignity 
as a chief justice, the child said, " I can tell that jack 
story, and I suppose that will do! " 

That Teacher No Good ! " Well, she had been highly 
recommended, had she not?" "Yes, but she is no 
good, just the same. She works hard enough, but she is 
only a miserable plodder. She evidently could wash 
dishes and sweep the house as well as most people, but 
she does not know how to handle boys and girls. She 
was probably a good classroom student, but she is blind 
to the beautiful world outside of books. She is good 
enough and sweet enough, but she is such a negative 
creature that she never stirs up anybody else to be good. 
She may be interested in her work, but her pupils are the 



80 Among Ourselves. 

worst idlers I ever saw. She is as quiet as a church- 
mouse herself, but bedlam breaks loose in her school 
several times a day. She may know all about scientific 
grammar, but she cannot talk one minute without violat- 
ing some simple principle in language. " And on he went, 
with buts enough to satisfy anybody that the teacher was 
"no good." Now, who do you suppose recommended 
her? A superintendent who knew that she was "no 
good," but — and here the round of buts begins again, 
but— 

Forty Thousand Dollars ! President Knappenberger 
recently startled the graduating class by declaring that it 
owed the State of Kansas forty thousand dollars, "for 
that is the sum the State is now paying each year for the 
support of the State Normal School." That amount and 
more the State expects to come back to it in the way of 
better service to its children in the public schools. In a 
similar way is every boy and girl educated at the people's 
expense indebted to the State. The money going into 
the public schools is given because the people consider it 
a profitable investment. Whenever they are convinced 
that it is not, the supply of funds will promptly stop. In 
these days when so many people think that the State owes 
them everything, it is well to remind them of their per- 
sonal indebtedness to the State. Who has a better 
opportunity to do this than the teacher ? If he fails to 
send the children out into life conscious not only of their 
monetary obligations but also of their great moral obliga- 
tions to the community, he too fails to discharge one of 
his highest duties. 



Among Ourselves. 81 

Its Real Endowment. Dr. Leffingwell says that ' the 
real endowment of an institution of learning is not in 
bonds and real estate, but in the consecration of noble 
lives to her service." Large incomes are desirable, but 
the consecration is essential. Money makes an institution 
independent, but consecration makes it serviceable. 
Kansas boasts of her schoolhouses and her princely 
public school fund, but if the hearts of the teachers are 
not correspondingly large and their devotion to the chil- 
dren not correspondingly great, there will be little gain. 
Money may command talent, but the children need more 
than that in their teachers; they need loving, sympathetic 
companionship, that unselfish devotion which is akin to 
that of the mother, that self-sacrificing service which love 
only is always begetting. 

" Great Scott, Mary ! " The patience of little Mary's 
mother was exhausted, and so the child was sent upstairs 
to think over her offences and decide what she was going 
to do about them. She soon appeared below with a 
cheerful face, and her mother said, " Well, Mary, what did 
you do upstairs?" "Oh, I told the Lord all about it 
and asked him to forgive me." " And what did he say, 
my child ? " " He said, ' Great Scott, Mary! You are 
not half so bad as many other children I know! ' " It 
is possible that Mary may not have been so bad as her 
mother thought, and also that our own weariness and 
nervousness may often cause us to think that our children 
are much worse than they really are. Oh, that some good 
spirit would the giftie gie us to see these little creatures 
as the Lord sees them ! 



82 Among Ourselves. 

The New Birth. Neither philosophy, nor art, nor 
ethics, nor any sort of science can get through you to 
the children in sealed packages. Truth must be reborn 
in you before it is schoolroom wisdom. — W. L. Bryan. 

Not to Die, but to Live. One of the speakers at 
Denver said we ought to teach our young men and 
women not how to die for their country but how to live 
for it. That is the true doctrine. Enough men have 
been dying for the country. What we now need is that 
everybody should live for it. Forgetting ease, forgetting 
self, forgetting gain, forgetting aught but the common 
good, let everything be done with the happiness and 
prosperity of the community only in view. Better patriot- 
ism than this cannot be taught anywhere. 

What Did You Lose? "Nothing." Beg pardon, 
my friend, but you did lose something. It was a glorious 
opportunity to give that discouraged pupil a kind word 
of sympathy and to make him feel that he has a friend in 
you. It is too late now and the chance may never come 
again. These are rare moments in your pupils' lives, and 
unless you are constantly watching for them, you will 
always be missing them. Your own soul is drying up for 
the lack of the joy that would come to it from giving just 
such help to your pupils. 

Be Definite. The bane of much of our teaching is its 
indefiniteness. Pupils get vague notions of things and 
imagine them knowledge. They have no shape in their 
minds and never find expression in language. This 
dreamy way of thinking soon becomes a habit, and then 
farewell to all positive mental growth. Do not tolerate 



Among Ourselves. 83 

it in yourself nor in your pupils. Know one thing well 
rather than a mere smattering of a hundred. Remember 
for the thousandth time over that it is not important how 
much the pupil knows, but rather how well he knows it. 

Teach with a Hook. Lachlan Campbell, in speaking 
of a certain young preacher, said: "A fery nice young 
speaker and well pleased with himself. But I have been 
thinking. There was a laddie feeshing in the sum before 
my house and a very pretty laddie he wass. He had a 
rod and a string and he threw his line peautiful. It was 
a great peety he had no hook, for it iss a great want, and 
you do not catch many fish without a hook." That's it. 
Pretty manners, graceful language, good humor, excellent 
order may characterize a teacher's work, but if there be 
no hook on his line, what is it all worth ? 

With Enthusiasm. A pupil said to me the other day : 
" I like my work fairly well, but the teacher is so poky 
and slow. He has no enthusiasm and little method. I 
like to have a teacher interest me. I like to have him 
stir me up. I like to have him make me hungry for 
something." One that reads this was that teacher, but 
he is not the only one who fails in this direction. Too 
many of us lack in spirit and in devotion. Nothing is so 
infectious as enthusiasm, and many otherwise ordinary 
teachers are successful because of their unbounded en- 
thusiasm. Wake up, my brother; move a little more 
rapidly, my sister. Even your pupils see how much of a 
machine you are and how lifeless is your teaching. 

Wash and Be Clean. It does not take long to wash 
your face and hands thoroughly clean while you are at it, 



84 Among Ourselves. 

and it adds much to your general appearance. A good 
body bath twice a week will make you feel like a new 
creature and will be a wonderful comfort to your friends. 
No school-teacher can afford anything else. The other 
day I heard a pupil complaining about a teacher, and that 
teacher was a woman, too, and the burden of her com- 
plaint was that she evidently had not had a good bath 
since the warm weather began! Shame on any teacher 
w r hose sloveliness calls forth such a criticism. Out on all 
who are too lazy and too shiftless to keep themselves and 
their clothing clean ! 

Ventilate. There are five thousand schoolhouses in 
Kansas, if the estimate be correct, where ventilation 
receives little or no attention. It seems strange that the 
foulest place in the district should be the schoolroom. 
Recent investigations in New York, San Francisco, and 
other large cities show a deplorable neglect of the simplest 
principles of sanitary science. In many places filth from 
sewers, cesspools, and factories contributes its unholy 
share to the noxious air that rises from defective closets 
and dark, damp alleys. Though windows may be raised 
and registers open, the air reeks with poison still. It 
were a consolation if these were the only places where the 
health of the children is thus endangered. Whatever 
limitations there may be in the large cities, there is no 
excuse for vitiated air in Kansas schoolhouses. 

Microbes. A Southern scientist has taken up the 
cudgel in defence of the microbes. After showing how 
beneficial they are in the water we drink, the air we 
breathe, the food we eat, and how needful is a generous 



Among Ourselves. 85 

stock scattered throughout the body for its healthful 
functions, he almost makes one wish to add this petition 
to his daily prayer, Lord, give us an abundance of microbes. 
The article shows how little many of us know of the 
hidden life round about us and it comes also as a 
reminder of the existence of those subtler spiritual forces 
which are everywhere at work round about and in and 
through us. Without them we would soon drop into an 
indifferent, sluggish mental and spiritual life whose end 
could only be death. We are painfully conscious of the 
forces that tempt to evil, and of the whole vile brood that 
beget unholy desires, but we forget how many silent 
voices are constantly calling us into a higher life and how 
many thousand little impulses to be manly and true and 
gentle and good come into our hearts every day. 

See My Pants ! Some time since a little boy was put 
on the program at a school exhibition for a recitation. 
The fond mother spent no end of time in fitting him up 
in a new suit of clothes for the occasion. He became 
more interested in it than in his declamation. The 
house was crowded, and when little Jim was called, he 
strode forth in all the glory of a prince of the realm. 
After making his bow, he hesitated a moment and then 
called out in the heartiness of his pride, " See my new 
pants! " The effort was too much for his little brain, and 
he retreated in confusion without making any attempt to 
recite. The case but illustrates the many where little 
children are pushed forward before the public with the 
idea that the dresses in which they appear are more 
important than the exercises they are to present. It 



86 Among Ourselves. 

would seem possible to engage the children so fully with 
the recitation or the song that they would forget all else 
save the story they are telling. Very early the child's 
heart may be set on clothing and display, and very early 
these things may be given a minor place in the child's 
eyes. 

Shame ! It is a common thing for a teacher to go 
into a community and not receive even the poor courtesy 
of a call from a single resident. We know of a young 
woman of excellent social qualities, who went to a small 
city last year to teach, and though she became an active 
church-worker and president of the Endeavor society, but 
one woman called upon her during the entire year. She 
was literally giving her life for others, and yet those whom 
she served failed to give her that sympathy and fellowship 
which every soul craves. Thank the Lord, there are some 
communities where teachers are shown the respect and 
love they deserve, and the number of them is growing 
greater each year. There is some consolation in knowing 
that they treat the teacher about as they treat each other, 
but it also shows how little these people are getting out 
of the social life, and how selfishly they are living. Our 
schools should not ignore this side of education, but 
should improve every opportunity to encourage and 
direct it. 

Literature and Character. It is very evident that 
our course of study is deeply rooted in the past, that 
culture and civilization are a product not to be manufac- 
tured to order, but a growth and registration in historical 
and literary forms of racial experience and progress. The 



Among Ourselves. 87 

reason why we harp so much upon literature and history 
is because they contain in potent educative solution the 
rich culture influences which we wish to see redeveloped 
in every child. Moral and social culture, with all their 
humanizing influence, are contained in the choicest litera- 
ture of America and Europe. Here are the ideals of life, 
revealed in their supreme strength and beauty. Here are 
the examples of men and women who lift and inspire. 
Here are revealed the moral qualities which should form 
the backbone of character. — Chas. A. McMurry. 

The Reward. Let us endeavor to make our pupils 
love their work, without fearing us. They may live — God 
knows — to love us. Whether they ever love us or not 
perhaps matters but little, if we do our work single-heart- 
edly. The mind conscious of right is itself no mean re- 
ward. — D. W. Thompson. 

That's the Way. The " Lieutenant " at Bonnal took 
care that whatever went into the heads of the children 
should be as clear and lucid as the silent moon in the 
heavens. He said: "Nothing can be called teaching 
which does not proceed on that principle." That's the 
way the "Lieutenant" succeeded, and it's the way the 
teacher down in District No. 5 succeeds too. 

Fads. There are fads and fads, but simply because you 
do not know anything about a new idea or a new principle 
do not pronounce it a fad. Some people are calling child 
study a fad. So they quickly set aside these great ques- 
tions of apperception, correlation, and concentration 
which are commanding the attention of the greatest minds 
of the world to-day. They may be fads, but they are 



88 Among Ourselves. 

neither freaks nor whims, and there is room on each hobby 
for every teacher who may wish to keep up with the ad- 
vancing procession. 

Teach Neatness and Order. I happened in a primary 
room yesterday as the teacher was about dismissing the 
pupils and was pleased to see a little boy or girl pass- 
ing up each aisle receiving and picking up scraps of all 
kinds and depositing them in the waste-basket. There 
was little work for the janitor when they had finished. 
How neat and trim everything looked ! How bright and 
happy were their little faces as they said good-night to 
their teacher ! Who can tell how many homes would be 
revolutionized after a few years' work with such a teacher ? 

Schoolhouse Wells. Out of 183 cases of typhoid fever 
in one year, in a city north of us, 180 of the persons af- 
flicted had been using well-water. This reminds us how 
many wells and cisterns, that stand unused during the long 
vacation, are supposed to be ready for use as soon as the 
pump-handle is fixed or bucket tied to the rope. Every 
such well or cistern ought to be thoroughly cleaned out 
before the pupils are permitted to use the water in them. 
Filth, and too often death, is at the bottom. Teachers, 
do not forget your responsibility in such matters. See 
that the board understands its responsibility also. 

Consistency. I met a man the other day who was not 
sending his little eight-year-old boy to school because he 
was unwilling to have him in classes with colored chil- 
dren. I visited the school and found just one little col- 
ored boy in the room which his boy would enter, and he 
was a clean, neat, bright little fellow, holding his own 



Among Ourselves. 9 1 

with them all. I afterward learned that the man I met 
is a coarse, passionate father, carrying the treatment of his 
family even to brutality at times, and often indulging in 
unrestrained profanity. Be it said to the honor of the 
colored people who have attended here, that their personal 
habits as well as their morality and manners are highly 
commendable. 

" A Brutal Teacher.' • So one said recently of a 
teacher who would not for his own right arm strike a 
pupil with his hand or whip him with a rod, and yet his 
words and manner strike his pupils so cruelly as to call 
forth such an exclamation as the above. Some teachers, 
even of great ability, forget the commonest courtesy due 
their pupils, imagining that there is some pedagogical vir- 
tue in such methods. There is no greater mistake. If 
they only knew how much suffering they cause, and how 
much their usefulness is curtailed by it, they would at 
once turn to the better way. No teacher has a right to 
abuse or wound a pupil simply because the pupil cannot 
help himself and must take it in silence. 

Don't Be Peevish. Of course you are not, but I am 
simply asking that you be sure to retain your present 
equable temperament and that you maintain that happy 
atmosphere so characteristic of you/ I have seen so many 
miserable, grumbling, fretful teachers that I am trying to 
do something to diminish the number. I happen to know 
two most delightful young women, who I had thought 
would never develop into chronic whiners ; but of late I 
have seen some startling symptoms in one of them. Some 
teachers seem to think they are not filling out the measure 



9 2 Among Ourselves. 

of their being unless they are making other people share 
their own querulous and discontented spirit. Don't be 
peevish. Take some quinine, or catnip tea, or — if noth- 
ing else will do — a little strychnine ! 

Teach Them How to Play. Endeavorers in Philadel- 
phia are finding a new field for their energies. They 
have discovered that few children among the slums know 
how to play. They know how to scratch and fight, but 
that is about all. Did it ever strike you that others be- 
sides slum children do not know how to play ? I meet 
hundreds of children whose lives have never been quick- 
ened into a hearty glow by spontaneous, rollicking play. 
It is just as important that children be taught a variety of 
healthful and enjoyable games as that they be taught 
arithmetic or history. They need them for the develop- 
ment of their imagination, for the whetting of their per- 
ceptive faculties, for the stimulation of their emotions and 
for the cultivation of their social and moral natures. In- 
nocent and attractive amusements have kept many a child 
from sinning. Plan plays as well as lessons for your chil- 
dren. 

Thanks! " He only did his duty and as he received 
his pay, as per agreement ; why thank him ? ' ' Well, if 
he did his duty he did more than most people and is de- 
serving thanks for that. If he received his pay it was no 
more than his due, but does it not add a little to his hap- 
piness to know that some one appreciates what he has 
done and takes pleasure in telling him so? Will it not 
serve as a stimulus to do better next time ? It costs you 
nothing, and means much to him. It will do you good 



Among Ourselves. 93 

also. It is more blessed to give than to receive. He is 
your teacher or the teacher of your child and no one else 
knows how much time and thought he has spent in devis- 
ing ways and means to make his teaching more effective. 
From sheer inability to understand and appreciate what a 
teacher is really accomplishing, the average man or 
woman makes his work a thankless task. You ought not 
to be among that number. Try the new way and see how 
both are blessed. 

Schools ioo Years Ago. Cowper was suspicious of 
the schools, including academies and colleges, and ad- 
vised parents who would have a son become a sot, or a 
dunce, or a dissolute spendthrift, to send him to school 
and 

" Train him in public with a mob of boys, 
Childish in mischief only and in noise." 

To insure success in the project, at eighteen send him to 
college where, in a short time, he throws off all restraint 
though " Some sneaking virtue lurks in him no doubt." 
He then declares 

" That these menageries all fail their trust, 
These public hives of puerile resort." 

His ''Tirocinium" is a terrific arraignment of the public 
schools of his time. It is said that he never recalled his 
school days without disgust and even horror, and hence 
became an eloquent advocate of home and of private in- 
struction, painting in glowing colors their advantages and 
results. Though certainly all the English schools of his 
time did not deserve such scathing denunciation, one 



94 Among Ourselves. 

would hardly need go very far even now to find too fre- 
quent a suggestion of the evils he describes. Every 
teacher ought to read that poem over many times, for he 
will surely find himself somewhere in it and will pretend 
less and work more. 

Intelligence and courtesy are not always combined. 
Often in a wooden house, a golden room you'll find. 

— Longfellow. 

Just So ! F. D. Maurice says : " I know that nine- 
tenths of those the university sends out must be hewers of 
wood and drawers of water. But if we train the ten-tenths 
to be so, then the wood will be badly cut and the water 
will be spilt. Aim at something noble ; make your system 
of education such that a great man may be formed by it, 
and there will be manhood in your little men of which you 
do not dream." 

Two-story Teachers. Just in front of my window as 
I write are two two-story business houses, and yet one of 
them is more than one-half higher than the other. There 
are some two-story teachers who are not nearly as high as 
other two-story teachers or even as some one-story people 
whom I know. They are supposed to be " away up," but 
it is in name only. There are many taller, broader, better 
teachers below them, teachers who are in every way their 
superiors, and yet work in humbler spheres. It is well 
that it is so ; otherwise what would the poor children do ? 
For their sakes let us find crumbs of comfort in it. 

Bad Breath. One of the best teachers I know is 
afflicted with a breath that always gets in the way, when I 



Among Ourselves. 95 

think of her. Much as I detest tobacco, I would prefer a 
tobacco breath every time. Whether it is due to indiges- 
tion, decaying teeth, the kind of food she eats, tuberculosis, 
or quinsy, in her case, I cannot tell. Whatever it is, she 
ought to rid herself of it. I would that she were the only 
teacher of my acquaintance so handicapped. Like her, 
they probably are unaware of its existence, and might thank 
a friend to tell them of it. The remedy in most cases is 
easy enough, and they all ought to hasten to use it. 

" Stop Kicking ! " "A horse cannot kick and pull at 
same time." Neither can a teacher. He may imagine 
that he can spend his strength in faultfinding, but one day 
he wakes up and finds himself a long distance behind the 
procession. There used to be a man in Kansas who de- 
lighted teachers' conventions with his humorous kicks at 
all sorts of real and imaginary evils in teachers, pupils, 
school boards, and the public generally. After kicking 
himself out of several good places, he finally kicked him- 
self out of the state and clear over the mountains. He was 
a good man in many ways, but having spent his strength in 
kicking, he had none left for pulling. Stop kicking, my 
brother, and fiu/l. 

"How Tedious !" 

" As tedious as a twice-told tale, 

Vexing even the dull ear of a drowsy man." 

It was about "a very interesting subject," so the teacher 
said, but her pupils wondered where the interesting part 
came in, and, after waiting awhile for its appearance, put 
in their time in getting tired. It was an interesting sub- 



9 6 Among Ourselves. 

ject, but the manner of the teacher was as dry and lifeless 
and dreary and aimless as the plains of Sahara. The only 
spirit she manifested was impatience at the listless inatten- 
tion of her pupils. So this "interesting subject" was 
passed, and so each day passed, and at last the teacher 
passed. She is still passing. 

'Fessor Winans Talked to Him! "Yes, I know 
'Fessor Winans mighty well," said the bootblack as he 
gave me an extra polish on learning that I was a friend of his 
old superintendent. " I wuz a mighty bad kid when he 
wuz here, that I wuz ; fightin', an' swearin', an' lyin', an' 
throwin' stones. The teacher used to whip me mighty 
hard for it ; but didunt do any good. 'Fessor Winans 
'ud call me in sometimes an' talk to me. That 'ud make 
me feel bad. I'd ruther take a lickin' any time than have 
'Fessor Winans. talk to me. He's a mighty kind man, 
that's what 'Fessor Winans is." 

Well Done ! In a southern Kansas town, a buxom col- 
ored girl had been having her own sweet way all the way 
up through the grades, taking hold of some of her teachers, 
and actually leading them out of the schoolroom to " cool 
off." She entered " 8- A " and at once showed her 
stubbornness by refusing to go to the blackboard and re- 
cite as asked. As she did not disturb the school in any 
other way, the teacher, a man, utterly ignored her for three 
or four days. At last, in a quiet, positive way, he said: 
" You are only doing yourself harm by refusing to do as I 
bid you. You are losing grades and chances to get help 
which I am always ready to give you." She quickly saw 
her mistake, and is now one of his most obedient and en- 



Among Ourselves. 97 

thusiastic pupils. When will we learn that we may say 
even to the children : Let us sit down and reason together P 

Dangerous Psychology ! One of my friends is requir- 
ing his teachers to study a little primer on psychology, 
and soon after the close of a meeting for the discussion of 
a leading topic, surprised a number of them listening to 
an excited teacher who was denouncing the study. She 
said: " I tell you, girls, we shall all become insane if we 
keep this up. This thing of looking into our minds and 
examining ourselves is most dangerous. It will drive any- 
body crazy, and I'm afraid of it ! " And so it has come 
to this ! Long since a wise one said, " The noblest study 
of mankind is man." He could not have thought, how- 
ever, that it would result in driving them crazy. Perhaps 
he did not think of encouraging women to undertake it. 
We get some consolation, though, out of the fact that 
even religion sometimes drives people to the madhouse, 
and if psychology does throw a teacher out of balance 
occasionally, we can still afford it for the benefit of the 
multitude. 

Be Yourself. If you try to be somebody's double, you 
will fail as sure as the sun rises, no matter how excellent 
that other may be. Some years since I found a teacher of 
high reputation in despair over her work. She was en- 
deavoring to teach as her superior taught, and her pupils 
were already in quiet rebellion at her failures. The reason 
was so evident that I insisted upon an immediate change 
to the method in which her own better self would be called 
into exercise, and in which she would feel untrammeled. 
To her surprise she really enjoyed the first recitation fol- 



98 Among Ourselves. 

lowing, and her pupils were soon saying land things of her 
work. She gradually put into use some of the best meth- 
ods of her superior, but she was able to use them profitably 
only as they became her own. If your methods are poor, the 
only way to make them better is to make yourself better. 
Then the better method is the natural method for you. 

Do Not Lose Your Wits ! When about to pay a small 
bill, many a man has found to his dismay that his money 
had disappeared through a hole in his pocket. It were a 
consolation if money only disappears in emergencies. 
One's wits often disappear in times of his greatest need. 
Fear, embarrassment, nervousness, consciousness of weak- 
ness, one or all, may be its cause. I have a friend of high 
nervous temperament, who is a fine pianist, but she never 
sits down to the piano to play for a company without taking 
one hand in the other and waiting a moment to become 
fully possessed of herself. This little device may prove 
helpful to many others. It seems to complete the circuit 
and produce that equilibrium so essential in trying or unex- 
pected situations. These frequently arise in a teacher's 
life, and they are the true test of his skill. Drill yourself 
to stop a moment and think; take no more time than ab- 
solutely necessary, but be sure that you are right before 
proceeding. Get right first, then speed. If necessary, 
go out and get a breath of fresh air, wash your face in cold 
water, count fifty-eight, quote a proverb to yourself, or 
utter a prayer for help. If you have dropped your wits, 
pick them up then and there before they are lost beyond 
recall. If you must lose them, let it be when alone and 
not in the schoolroom in the presence of your pupils. 



Among Ourselves. 99 

Here's the riddle: — 

' How all's in each, and every one of all 
Maintains his self complete and several." 

" Keep Well the Dreams of Youth ! " So the Ger- 
mans say, and it is good pedagogy, too. Do not grow 
old. Do not allow the disappointments of life to rob you 
of those visions which illuminated the days of your youth. 
Hold them sacred, too, in your children. The shadows 
come quickly enough and thick enough in every life. Let 
our mission be to keep the warm sunlight in us and all 
around us, even when sore trials come and dark clouds 
hover near. 

" Excellent, Fair, Good." So the superintendents 
mark the governing ability of teachers on their certificates. 
How it must make a teacher wince to see anything but 
"good" or "excellent" on this line. School boards 
are scanning it more carefully these days than heretofore. 
They ought to select their teachers as discreetly as they 
select eggs. If they are simply "fair," nobody wants 
them; if "good," it might be well to look farther; but 
if "excellent," why not sign up the contract at once? 

Too Much for His Mind ! In speaking of a certain 
member of a city school board recently a patron said, 
"He has too much education for his mind!" Poor 
fellow ! And yet 'twere well, if he were the only man so 
beset. Who is to blame ? Certainly every teacher who 
spends his time cramming his pupils instead of making 
them think and reason, who fills their heads with knowl- 
edge and forgets that skill in its use is the more important, 



ioo Among Ourselves. 

who teaches subjects rather than children, who knows not 
that the mind grows and attains great power only as inter- 
est awakens and the self-activity of the pupil is stimulated 
to mastership in everything it touches. 

" Get the Stupidity Out of You ! " Last summer for 
the first few days after going up into the mountains, I 
felt very lazy and drowsy. In speaking to the "grand- 
mother ' ' of the ranch about it, she comforted me by say- 
ing, "You must be a little patient, for it may take a 
week or ten days to get the malaria and stupidity out of 
you, but relief will surely come." I could only exclaim, 
what a glorious place for school-teachers ! Here we are 
working along under pressure day by day, with dull wits 
and slow plodding of which most of us are only too con- 
scious, when there are ways to free ourselves from it, and 
to come to our children with the freshness and vivacity of 
perennial interest. Quinine or beberine may drive out the 
malaria, but higher altitudes only will relieve us of stu- 
pidity. 

Keep Your Own Counsel. John Halifax said of Mrs. 
Tod, "She has one remarkable virtue for a woman: she 
knows how to hold her tongue ! " In a city not for away, 
one of the best teachers lacked this " remarkable virtue," 
and wondered why she was not reelected. Her disposi- 
tion to talk about her superintendent and her fellow 
teachers brought her no end of trouble. She is but one 
of a whole tribe of restless people who find their own 
schoolrooms too small for their vocal powers and though, 
in many cases, really most excellent and valued workers 
are consequently permitted to depart in peace. It mat- 



Among Ourselves. 101 

ters not that much of the talking is done " confidentially," 
it sooner or later reaches ears "confidentially," where 
harm is done, and "confidentially" the original talker 
pays the penalty. 

Mix a Little. " A good teacher and a fine man, but 
he is a poor mixer, so we had to let him go. He made 
friends with nobody, was a perfect stick in society, and 
lived to himself alone. It was a common remark among 
the merchants that they never saw him down town save 
when he came down to get his order at the end of the 
month. On that day just fifteen minutes after four o'clock 
he always appeared with a brisk walk and a pleased look, 
but on that day only. How different from his successor, 
whom everybody knows, whom the children greet with a 
smile wherever they see him, who is a leader in any circle, 
who is found at every sick-bed, and who in a few months 
has become as fully a part of us as the oldest inhabitant. 
He is not so learned nor so good a teacher as the other 
man, but he is doing us more good, and can stay as long 
as he pleases." Yes, mix a little, my friend. 

" Shine ! " One day a bootblack came running up to 
a company of us, shouting, " Shine P " when one glancing 
at his boots, said to Chancellor Lippincott, " I guess I 
don't need any, do I ? " The Chancellor replied, " Well, 
no, not at that end ! ' ' Many people are anxious about 
the polish of their boots, and pay little attention to the 
polish of their brains. Many are fastidious to a fault 
about their dress, but spend little time or thought in the 
cultivation of that better part of us whose lustre neither 
dust nor moisture can dim. They utilize the services of 



102 Among Ourselves. 

the bootblack, the tailor, and the draper without stint, 
but manage to get along without the aid of the school- 
master, or of that great army of books whose acquaint- 
ance would enlighten and refine with that wisdom which 
rubies cannot buy. Possibly we do not cry "s/iine" 
enough on the highways, 

Sympathy. Not long since an attending physician in 
one of the Chicago asylums was adjudged insane. The 
verdict declared that his long acquaintance with the un- 
fortunate insane, and his devotion to their needs, con- 
sumed by a sympathy for them in their helpless condition, 
had resulted in unbalancing his own mind. How com- 
pletely had he surrendered his own life for the poor crea- 
tures coming to him for help ! How sharp a comment 
upon those of us who fail to enter sufficiently into the life 
of the children entrusted to our care to be touched by their 
mute appeals for love and sympathy and confidence ! If 
sympathy for the child does not develop, we cannot be- 
come like him, nor grow in our power to serve him. No 
man or woman whose heart is not touched by the cry of 
the child, or whose eye does not kindle as he hears its 
merry prattle, is fit to become its teacher. Sympathy, 
rich and warm as the blood that flows through the veins of 
youth, tender and spontaneous as a mother's love, should 
crown the other graces that make up the ideal teacher. 

The Office of Enemies. We often get discouraged 
over the criticisms and opposition of our enemies, and 
fight back or run away. Nine times out of ten we ought 
to do neither. There is usually some ground, apparent 
or real, for a criticism, and our first concern should be to 



Among; Ourselves. 103 

discover it and set about at once to remove it. If every- 
body had only words of approval, as our friends usually 
have, we should soon grow lax and careless, than which 
nothing is more destructive. We need to have some one 
get in our way occasionally to wake us up and to stimulate 
to renewed exertion. Skill never comes to one who 
never meets resistance. I often think that I have been 
more benefitted by the criticisms of my enemies than by 
the advice of my friends. My enemies have at least had 
the virtue of frankness, while my friends have been slow 
to speak. It too often happens, however, that when our 
friends try to do us a service we at once interpret the 
criticism as prompted by unfriendliness, and we lose both 
a friend and an opportunity also. So do not worry if you 
find an enemy on your school board or among your 
patrons. He may serve you better than your friends, if 
you but use him properly. Take every criticism in a 
kindly spirit and you will grow in efficiency and in the 
number of your friends. You will soon see great reasons 
for blessing them that despitefully use you. 

Oh, for the rising of that day, when the real majesty 
and power of the human mind shall be revealed to the 
ignorant multitude in all its magnificence! Here is the 
only greatness worth the name ! Here, the only power fit 
for universal rule! — Mrs. Alfred Gaily. 

"Hush Thee, My Baby! " Simply because you are 
trying to teach school, and yet are acting like a spoiled 
child — you are as sensitive and jealous as a baby — you 
pout and whimper as though you had been greatly abused 



io 4 Among Ourselves. 

by your elders, and every little trouble that comes along 
calls out a flood of tears. You are not old enough to 
teach children, even though you have seen thirty summers. 
Your superintendent is getting weary of playing the 
mother to you. He would have you go nowhere else 
with your sorrows, but he prays daily that you may be 
more of a woman and less of a child, more brave and less 
tearful, a tower of strength to him as well as to your- 
pupils. Hush thee, my baby / 

Be Brief. A woman went to a physician and, rolling 
up her sleeve, showed a blistered arm and simply said, 
" Burn! " He looked at it and said, " Poultice! " She 
came back in a week and said, " Better! " He only 
said, " More poultice! " She came back in a fortnight 
and said, " Well ! What is the bill ? " He bowed grace- 
fully and said, "Nothing, Madame, you are the most 
sensible woman I ever saw; good day! " Now, the 
average teacher needs to read that story and ponder. I 
confess to a little pleasure in doing a good deal of talking 
to my classes myself, but that story is helping me. 
Most of us do talk too much and too long. Well do I 
remember going to sleep in spite of myself as my learned 
professor would discourse wisely and dryly and lengthily 
upon some point in the lesson, that I understood already, 
and vastly better before he began than when he closed. 

"Well, I Declare !" Once when strolling through 
the French Market in New Orleans, I heard the greatest 
clatter and jabber on my right, and turning saw a little 
Frenchman making the scales fly from a fish on his block 
and shouting at lightning rate and with no end of 



Among Ourselves. 105 

variation and inflection and tone, "Well, I declare/" 
Whether surprised at the fish, at himself, or at the state of 
trade, I could not tell, but each time as I came near, I 
found him rattling away in the same old vein. I wondered 
why he had little or no trade, while his quiet neighbors 
were kept busy waiting on their customers. It is the old 
story, though, for the people soon learn that the noisy 
fellows are the least worthy of their confidence. They 
prefer the man or the woman who is willing that the 
work shall speak for itself. Teachers may learn a good 
lesson on this subject from the medical profession. 

The Professor. Brother MacDonald has long made 
war on the vulgar use of the word professor. I wonder if 
he was not born in Drumtochty and was not an occasional 
visitor at David Ross'. If so, it accounts for it all. David 
was careful about the use of the title, particularly when 
speaking of his son John, who had already won five 
degrees. He said to Meg: "We maun be cannie wi' 
John's title, wumman, for ye ken Professor is no ordinar' 
word; a' coont it equal tae Earl at the verra least; an' it 
wudna dae tae be aye usin' 't. " "Ye might say 't aince 
in a conversation, juist lettin' 't slip oot by accident this 
wy, ' the Professor was sayin' in his laist letter — a' mean 
oor son in Australy ' — but a' wud ca' him John at ither 
times. Pride's an awfu' mischief, Meg." But Meg 
flared up at once and declared: " Ye're as prood as a'm 
masel, David, and there's nae use ye scoldin' at me for 
gein' oor laddie the honor he won wi' his brain and work. 
A'm no feared what the neeburs say. Professor he is, 
an' Professor a'll ca' him; ye'll may be sayin' Jock next, 



io6 Among Ourselves. 

tae show ye're humble! " " Dinna tak me up sae 
shairp, gude wife, or think a' wud mak little o' John; 
but the Almichty hes na gien ilka faimily a Professor an' 
a'm no wantin' tae hurt oor neeburs, " said David; — and, 
somewhere in the above is a truth and its moral. 

Loyalty. If teachers were a little more loyal to their 
patrons and to their principals and superintendents, much 
good would come. Loyalty does not consist simply in 
refraining from saying anything disparaging concerning a 
superior, nor in defending his good name when attacked, 
but in hearty cooperation with him both in spirit and 
method, a?jd also in advising him in a friendly manner of 
his errors and of ways and means whereby his work might 
be made more effective. If many teachers were to work 
half as hard in this way to assist a superior as they do to 
break him down, they would be surprised at the good 
results following. What if you do not like him per- 
sonally ? What if he is not congenial ? What if you do 
know more than he ? What if he is a little autocratic ? 
What if he is a little slow ? He is your superior officer, 
and, for the sake of the children, the more grievous his 
faults the more he needs your sympathy and support. 

The Main Purpose. The other evening at the organ 
recital the organist played the " Visit of the Magi Kings 
to the Christ Child." He kept one single high note, 
representing the star which guided them, sounding all the 
time while he played the journey, the visit to Herod, and 
the adoration as a sort of accompaniment to it. Through 
it all there was not a note out of accord with the star. 
At times we practically lost sight of the star as we became 



Among Ourselves. 107 

absorbed in the story, and again it would flash out with 
increased brilliancy. How much like a life bent on one 
grand purpose, never changing through the years. Often 
as we see it engrossed with affairs of the world, or 
apparently turning aside from some long-pursued plans, 
we fancy the purpose surrendered; but one day it stands 
out more clearly than ever, and we see that after all it was 
controlling every thought and act. Happy the man in 
whom a lofty ideal thus becomes a ruling passion and 
whose every impulse, every deed, is in perfect harmony 
with it! 

The Heart's a' the Part a' ! I look back to-night and 
count nearly a score of teachers on my fingers, and raise 
the question of their influence upon me. Just one crowds 
any or all of the others out, and that one was neither the 
handsomest nor the most learned among them. He was 
the only one, however, who seemed to live wholly in his 
pupils. He seemed to have no other ambition than to 
serve them. He loved his home, he loved his church, he 
loved his books; but his great love was for his pupils, and 
somehow they all felt it and all knew it. They could 
hardly tell how, nor why, but when they were counting 
up their friends they never left him out, and his genial, 
unselfish spirit had love enough to go round them all. 
It appears a little strange now I think of it, but every 
other teacher seemed to have some other ambition, some 
other love, superior to that which he had for his pupils. 
One was planning to study law; one was stocking a farm 
which he soon expected to settle upon; one was building 
up a great library in which he spent his happiest hours; 



108 Among Ourselves. 

one was engrossed in his scientific investigations and 
experiments; one had his eye on a higher position; one 
had 

A charming lover so fair ; 
and another was just trying to earn a livelihood; but this 
dear soul was simply living for us — we absorbed every- 
thing. As he surrendered himself so completely to us, 
he was able to exercise an influence over us which called 
into being the best impulses of our nature. His supreme 
indifference to self and his sublime devotion to us served 
as an irresistible stimulus to attempt great things. I owe 
much to many of my teachers, God bless them all, but 
this man kindled within me the noblest ambitions of my 
life. Oh, for such a large heart and such warm blood in 
every schoolroom in the land ! 

The mind of the scholar, if you would have it large 
and liberal, should come in contact with other minds. — 
Longfellow. 

The dignity of every occupation wholly depends upon 
the quantity and the kind of virtue that may be exerted 
in it. — Burke. 

"I Was in a Hurry." Miserable excuse! If you 
had done it right always when not in a hurry, the habit 
would not have failed you in the emergency. You mis- 
spell a word, omit an abbreviation-mark, do not capitalize, 
forget a date, blot the paper, omit the subject or predicate 
of a sentence, neglect to thank a friend for a favor, keep 
his lead pencil, come into the room with dirty shoes, etc., 
etc., et cetera, et ceterumque 1 Take time to do every- 



Among Ourselves, 109 

thing right, if you do but one single thing in a whole day. 
By and by you will be able to do two things right in a 
day, then three, then many! First accuracy, then 
rapidity! 

Is Love Blind ? So says the old proverb, but Barrie 
insists that it is a mistake, and that Love has three eyes, 
one more than ordinary people, by which it sees the good 
where others see only the bad. This is the reason teachers 
need it so much. It must be admitted that only a third 
eye could find anything good in some children, but that 
only makes it more of a necessity. If we do not find the 
good, who will ? If no good is found, how are we to 
begin the process of character-building without which all 
education is a failure ? Love is not necessarily blind to 
faults, but it never fails to find the good. The former it 
tries to cover up, the latter it tries to magnify and build 
up, holding that one of these days it will be the one great 
thing in the life as it is now in the love. 

Courteously ! The other day I entered a dining-car 
and learned a lesson in courteousness. One of the waiters 
innocently blundered and the head waiter, who had 
already won me by his suavity, came up and took special 
charge of my table, treating me as though I were the 
president of the railroad. I observed similar solicitude 
for everybody else at the tables. It is true that when my 
bill came in, it looked as though I would need to be 
president of something, but I could afford to pay it for 
such generous and cordial treatment as they gave me. 
Why should it not be so everywhere ? Simply because 
too many of us are forgetting it as a part of our teaching. 



no Among Ourselves. 

We are careful enough about those holding positions 
above us, but fail to remember our duty to our equals and 
to those below us, who, after all need it more than our 
superiors. Are you giving regular, practical lessons in 
good manners to your children ? If not, this is a good 
day to begin. 

Such Ingratitude ! Not that exactly, my friend. 
Though your pupils may act as if they were not apprecia- 
ting your work, many of them may be very grateful and 
simply lack in knowledge of ways of showing it. Your 
experience is but the lot of all. I have many a time given 
a hand to a pupil to help him over a difficulty, have borne 
with this one and that one times without number, have 
labored hard to secure positions for some, and never 
received one single word of thanks. Some, however, are 
so warm and generous in expressions of gratitude as to 
shame me that I did not do more. They make up in 
part for the tardy ones and for those who never respond 
at all. Learn from the experience of the Master: Were 
there not* ten lepers cleansed, but where are the nine? 
Find great comfort in the kind words of the few, and hope 
that the others are more appreciative than they seem. As 
a matter of fact, many of them are telling their friends how 
much you have done for them and some day, may, when 
you need it more than now, surprise you with assurances 
of their love and gratitude. May be after all, you are 
being paid in your own coin. If so, hasten to pay your 
own long-overdue debts and you may have the joy for 
which you crave. Take this also along with you : It is 



Among Ourselves. 1 1 1 

far better to find your chief pleasure in service and not in 
rewards. 

Save the Best for your Pupils. A rare soul, whom I 
can name, has long been in rather poor health, but no 
one would suspect it when visiting her schoolroom. She 
is as bright and cheery as a young girl and the atmosphere 
is full of that magnetism which no one, not even the most 
mischievous boy or the most indifferent girl, can resist. 
At home or in company she does not exert such a power. 
She saves the best for her children. I can name several 
others who give the best of their time and their strength 
to society and to friends or even to charity, while their 
children suffer. Their schoolrooms are as dead and 
spiritless as the chambers of the pyramids. They cannot 
make them otherwise, for they have already given their 
blood and their strength elsewhere. Brethren and sisters, 
these things ought not so to be ! Whatever we do, let us 
not rob the children. Let us live for them. 

Covering up Faults. We teachers are always hard at 
work trying to pick flaws, and, having found them, show 
the culprit little mercy. It were better if more of us knew 
just when and how to cover up a defect in a pupil to his 
profit. A teacher misspelled a word on the blackboard in 
assigning a lesson, and two or three pupils got together 
and made sport of it; another inserted a caret and wrote 
the omitted letter prominently above so as to call attention 
to it, though pretending to help the teacher out; a third 
carefully erased two or three letters and deftly corrected 
the spelling so that no one would notice his teacher's 
blunder. Which of all these, think you, was the teachers 



ii2 Among Ourselves. 

neighbor P Learn a lesson from this story. It often does 
a pupil more good for the secret to rest between him and 
his teacher, or even for the teacher to overlook the fault 
when the pupil sees it, than to bring it out to the full 
view of his mates. Study only the pupil's good in it all. 

By the Way, are we not, as teachers and as parents, 
failing to teach the children the duty of thanking those 
who serve them ? How many a weary heart would forget 
its burdens if some one would speak a kind word of 
appreciation. I know a young woman who sang all the 
day long because a friend in passing in the morning, 
dropped a pleasant word of appreciation for something 
she had done. It is a beautiful custom to remember a 
teacher, or a servant, or a friend, with some little token 
on his birthday or on Christmas, but it is far better to let 
him know by smiles and pleasant greetings and grateful 
words and the doing of a quiet little service in return 
whenever possible, that you are not forgetting his good- 
ness to you. Children are naturally responsive in their 
early years and their sense of appreciation simply needs 
direction. Do not be selfish about it. Train them to 
right expression of kindly appreciation of others. Your 
turn will come by and by. 

Increase Your Resources. When a boy, I read that 
no one could stand under a tree with Edmund Burke for 
half an hour, waiting for a shower to pass by, without 
being convinced that he was the greatest man in the world. 
The barrister would talk so fluently, and so entertainingly 
about everything in sight — the storm, the rainbow, the 
tree, the birds seeking shelter near by, the pebbles at his 



Among Ourselves. 113 

feet, the nest hanging from a limb above, the brook now 
swelling to a torrent, the flowers that smiled an assurance 
of safety— that one felt he had learned the greatest lesson 
of his life. How rich and helpful such a man among his 
fellows! The teacher who knows only his dear little text- 
book, lives in a narrow sphere and fails to drink in the 
wonderful inspiration which nature never ceases to pro- 
vide. What a dry sort of a crust he is to his pupils. 
How narrow his direction of their vision. But that other 
one to whom 

" Nature speaks a varied language," 
and whose mind is filled with the treasures of history, of 
literature, and of art, comes to them every day with a 
richer supply of thought and of power. He stimulates 
them all to look out and up and over and through, and 
so never knows that drudgery of the schoolroom which is 
fatal to so many teachers. 

There is nothing more terrible than a teacher who does 
not know more than the scholars at all events ought to 
know. — Goethe. 

Bide Your Time. Montan says to Wilhelm Meister: 
"Practise till you are an able violinist and be assured 
that the director will have pleasure in assigning you a 
place in the orchestra." This is good advice to all, par- 
ticularly to those who are more impatient to fill some 
exalted position than they are to fit themselves for it. 
They spend their time dreaming and scheming for place 
instead of improving and perfecting themselves in their 



ii4 Among Ourselves. 

art. They seem ignorant of the fact that the world will 
not be slow in finding them as their skill and worth 
appear. Neither the gold in the mountains nor the pearls 
in the sea are more eagerly sought than are the men and 
women whose attainments fit them best to serve it. 

"Of this World. " So said Principal Rounds as we 
visited the grades in the Webster school at Washington, 
D.C. Every teacher seemed to realize that the world 
round about us is abundantly provided with material for 
the education of the children, and that an acquaintance 
with it and its great heart is one of the chief ends of 
education. As a consequence, we found little of that 
abstract, pettifogging sort of teaching which is so common 
in many schoolrooms. The children were wide-awake, 
attentive, earnest, clear-headed, self-reliant, progressive. 
As they went out of the schoolroom, they did not find 
themselves strangers in a strange land, but were at home 
everywhere and interested in what they saw. 

Good Manners. In this same building we also saw 
what a little training in good manners will do for children. 
Without any apparent suggestion from the teacher, one 
of the boys promptly provided us with chairs and at 
recess, as we were putting on our overcoats, a gentle- 
manly little fellow stepped up behind with a helping hand 
and a pleasant bow. Such training as that everywhere 
will not fail to make a nation of gentlemen and ladies out 
of any people. 

" Give Me Attention, Please." A friend some years 
since visited the schools of Leavenworth and reported to 
me that in a single recitation he had heard a teacher ask 



Among Ourselves. 115 

the attention of his class at least thirty times. It was: 
" John, let's have your attention, sir! " " Let's have the 
attention of all, please! " " Mary, are you not talking 
to Susan instead of attending to your lesson ? " " Now, 
everybody, attention to this! " "I cannot do anything 
for you without your attention, Henry! " etc., etc. I 
spent a day recently visiting these same schools and did 
not hear a single teacher ask for attention. One of them 
ordered a pupil to stop doing something, but everywhere 
there was that keen interest which is the highest test of 
successful school-keeping. In some cases, I thought the 
tension even too strongly drawn, but the relief from that 
indifferent, lazy plodding, or that forced attention of the 
martinet was worth going a long distance to find. 

"No Vicious Pupils Here ! " What! not in all these 
five hundred boys and girls ? " No, sir," said Principal 
Rodgers of one of the Leavenworth ward schools, " save 
possibly one who might be called that by some people. 
We have a dozen or fifteen who give us a little trouble 
occasionally, but they are not vicious, and are fast learning 
the better way. " This was said with a spirit and an assur- 
ance that revealed the secret of it all — love, sympathy for 
the children, discreet management, and motherly patience 
that finds the good even in the worst of them, that 
tolerates no suggestion of incorrigibility, and that goes 
bravely about building up new motives and new ambitions, 
enable her to say "we have no vicious pupils here." 
Go thou and do likewise / 

"I Fell Down." "Did you, dear? Well, I'm so 
glad you told me, for I do not want you to take this ex- 



1 1 6 Among Ourselves . 

ercise if you are not able to take it." So said the teacher 
as a little fellow explained his inability to file out with his 
class, and there was then and there sealed a compact of 
mutual sympathy and helpfulness that time cannot efface. 
Though I do not have that teacher's name, these simple 
words, as I passed hastily through her room, told me all 
about her life and showed me its beautiful ministry. 

Not Submission, but Cooperation. That teacher who 
asked his pupil why he whipped him and heard the apt 
reply, " Simply because you are stronger than I am, sir!" 
raises the question whether he is the only one who rules 
by mere brute force. It is possible that many do not try 
to rule in any other way, but they blunder sadly in forget- 
ting that cooperation is worth a thousand times more than 
submission. Pupils who study and obey simply because 
they fear punishment are not making much progress 
toward manhood and womanhood. It is only when they 
become possessed of the spirit of spontaneous and hearty 
cooperation that great progress is assured. 

"So Hungry !" The Child- Study Monthly tells the 
story of a bad boy in one of the Chicago schools whose 
general wickedness and restlessness had exhausted the pa- 
tience of his teachers, until one of them thought to ask him 
why he was so bad. He promptly replied: "Because I 
am so durned hungry ! " Can it be possible that this is 
the one great explanation of the fact that so many children 
of the very poor are so difficult to govern ? At certain sea- 
sons of the year, how many of them come to school every 
day not only hungry for necessary food, but hungry also 
for the little relishes that make food palatable even to the 



Among Ourselves. 119 

hungry? Teacher, do you know whether any of your 
children are sitting to-day in your forms hungry for bread? 
Does not the possibility of it prompt you to know more 
about them? Being hungry for bread, they are still more 
hungry for your sympathy. 

That Good Name. It often happens that a teacher is 
exceedingly careless of his good name. He is not always 
anxious about shunning the very appearance of evil. He 
is not choice in the selection of his associates. He in- 
dulges in questionable amusement. He is occasionally 
seen where the best people hesitate to go. He keeps late 
hours. He rather enjoys being called a sport. He forgets 
to pay his debts. He neglects his studies. He does a 
score of little things that annoy and alienate his friends, 
and one day he is grievously surprised that the substantial 
people in the district are not urging his reelection. It 
might be a good plan for a school board to insist upon a 
certificate of good character from the preceding board 
before employing a teacher. That certificate might also 
wisely include the reason for the teacher's seeking a change. 

Perhaps it happens as often that the teacher is a woman, 
and that her indifference to the value of a good name is 
simply appalling. I think just now of one who really enjoyed 
the notoriety of having aroused the jealousy of the wife of 
one of her patrons; of another who could not understand 
that frequent rides with a man whose wife was kept busy at 
home taking care of the stuff and the children, should call 
forth unfriendly criticism ; of another who thought it no- 
body's business if she did keep company occasionally with 
a man whose general morals were supposed to be fairly in 



120 Among Ourselves . 

keeping with his well-known reputation as a common gam- 
bler ; of another who found recreation in promenading the 
streets in such a way as to attract the attention of light- 
headed gentry without number ; of another who showed 
such utter disregard of the ordinary courtesies of good so- 
ciety that she was not welcome in any refined home ; of 
another who was known to accept the company of strange 
gentlemen on a five-minute acquaintance ; of another who 
spent fewer hours in sleep than in amusements. Of what 
priceless value in a woman as well as in a man, are dis- 
cretion and common sense. It ought to take little of 
either to understand that a good name is to be desired above 
great riches. If the teacher is not awake to its import- 
ance, how can the children know how to prize it ? 

That Blackboard. It was not black, nor white. It 
was a sort of grizzly gray, with more of the grizzle than the 
gray, and with but an occasional spot where a whole word 
could be written without crossing a crack. The teacher, 
having never seen a better, was thinking it pretty good. 
Herein lies a moral. Pick it out. 

" Better Every Year." Thus writes a teacher who is 
growing in her work. She enjoys it better each year 
because she has a conscience and because she faithfully 
strives to find better ways of serving her pupils. The 
drudgery of which many teachers complain is unknown to 
her. She has no humdrum routine, because she finds 
something new and interesting in every lesson and in 
every pupil every day. 

The Way It is Done ! ' ' She simply keeps her pupils 
so busy thinking about their work that they do not care 



Among Ourselves. 121 

to whisper ; that's the whole story! " But that is not the 
whole story. By what magic, by what subtle power, 
by what sorcery, by what mystic charm, by what touch 
divine, does she manage to keep them busy thinking about 
their work ? When you have told me that, you have told 
me the whole story and not before. When I have learned 
that I shall be satisfied. 

" I Won't Do It ! " So said a little three-year-old, 
who had just learned in the morning how to say it explo- 
sively, as his father asked him to do something that dis- 
pleased him. His father turned to him and said, " My 
son, don't you tell your father you won't do it." With 
an expression of interrogation on his face, the chick 
promptly replied: "Please, father, I won't do it." 
There it was, and there it is ! The little diplomat was 
willing to compromise on that, and so gracefully managed 
his case that he maintained his self-respect at least. 

Skill Also. The simple act of getting the knowledge, 
of acquisition, of understanding a truth, is but the first step 
in the act of learning. It must be repeated, says Rosen- 
kranz, until it becomes a part of the pupil. He must use 
it, express it, apply it, in such a variety of ways and so fre- 
quently that it comes to him spontaneously when the 
occasion for its use arises. Thousands of pupils are rushed 
along in their classes, merely getting glimpses of things, 
getting neither growth nor skill. The teacher learns 
sooner or later what superficial, helpless creatures he has 
made. The old call to drill, not merely mechanical con- 
cert drill, needs to be repeated over and over again to 
every schoolmaster. 



122 Among Ourselves. 

"He is Lazy!" Now, who would have thought it, 
and he a school-teacher too ! What do you mean ? "I 
mean that he does not like to work ! Oh, yes, he is 
usually on hand when there is any chance to talk or to 
come to the front, but he does not take pleasure in the 
daily, hand-to-hand work with his pupils, without which 
they can make little progress. He seldom knows much 
about his lessons, but relies on his shrewdness in putting 
questions and on the faithfulness of a few of his better 
pupils to hide his shiftlessness. There is nothing ready, 
aggressive, helpful, inspiring about him. He does not 
carry himself. How can he carry his pupils? I have 
watched him long enough to understand him thoroughly. 
He is lazy ! ' ' 

Holy Zeal. Rosenkranz says that the artistic element 
in the teacher's method is not, as many of us imagine, the 
most important thing. The teachers who have elegance of 
manner and grace in diction are too often disposed to rely 
upon them for success. He reminds us that such teachers 
are apt to keep themselves in view and forget their pupils. 
The didactic element is the one thing needful, and what- 
ever artistic skill the teacher possesses must be made sub- 
servient to it. No teacher can succeed who does not 
exalt his pupils above himself. If he fail to do this, they 
soon detect his vanity and the shallowness of his interest 
in them. Naught can take the place of holy zeal. It 
must give color and texture and life to everything the 
teacher does. 

" In Your Small Corner." It often happens that a 
teacher imagines he is not doing much, because his name 



Among Ourselves. 123 

is not more frequently mentioned in the newspapers or he 
is not given prominent places on the convention pro- 
grams. He ought, however, to find a little comfort in 
knowing that it is not an unusual thing for some teachers to 
furnish personal items of news about themselves, and that 
teachers who spend much time in preparing papers for the 
public, not infrequently do it at the expense of their pupils. 
In my visits to different parts of the State, I am always find- 
ing teachers of great ability, whom the children love and 
whom their patrons hold in high esteem, and yet of whom 
I had never heard before. They were doing their work in 
their own small corner, content to do it well, rich in the 
affection of friends, neither seeking nor caring for notoriety. 
" Short-order " Colleges. Some of the colleges and 
schools that promise such an elaborate education in a few 
months may have their place in our educational system, 
but it must certainly be about as that which the short- 
order restaurants hold to the regular hostelry. The former 
serve in case of haste to bridge over until the succeeding 
regular meal, but for supplying the regular diet they soon 
prove a very unsatisfactory substitute. So these short- 
order colleges may help along a little when time is the 
most precious thing in the world, but the man or woman 
who depends upon them for that education which is to 
serve him for life, and which is to fit him for coping with 
its great problems, will soon find how inadequate has been 
his preparation and how unsatisfactory are all of his sup- 
posed attainments. No, no, brethren and sisters, short- 
order education is a delusion and he that is deceived 
thereby is not wise ! 



1 24 Among Ourselves. 

" According to Nature.* ' If there be a paradoxical 
doctrine in our theology, it is this. Shall it be according 
to the nature of a particular child, with all its whims and 
restless fancies, its demands for the possible and the im- 
possible, for the hurtful as well as the beneficial ? Shall it 
be according to the nature of the child as some philoso- 
phers of the cloister have decided him to be, a sort of an 
abstraction, a fairly definable, yet impalpable something 
which one never finds entering the schoolroom? Or 
shall it be according to the nature of the average child, 
the possible child, as he is known to those who handle him 
and study him every day, a spirit incarnate, a real thing 
having much in common with all the boys and girls in the 
world, and yet with enough variety to tax the teacher's 
energies for his management and development? There 
are many things in the nature of this last boy that may be 
regarded as normal and "according to which" we may 
safely proceed, but let us not be led far aside by the others. 
Nature is our only true teacher, our only safe guide, but 
let us not mistake its freaks for its true self. 

Most readers, like good-natured cows, 

Keep browsing and forever browse ; 

If a fair flower comes in their way, 

They take it, too, nor ask, " What, pray 1 : ' 

Like other fodder it is food, 

And for the stomach quite as good. 

— S. H. Clark. 

"Pm as Cross as a Hornet to-day; you better look 
out ! " Indeed, and do you expect pay for acting the 
hornet to-day? Do you think it will stimulate a better 



Among Ourselves. 125 

spirit and better work on the part of your children to-day 
that they know you are in danger of stinging them? 
Have you forgotten that boys seldom go near hornets' 
nests without throwing stones at them, and that even girls 
sometimes try it? Did you ever hear the maxim, "Like 
priest, like people?" Do you know how far you have 
fallen in the estimation of every child in the room whose 
love you crave by that foolish remark ? Do you teach self- 
control, and yet expect your pupils to attain it in an at 
mosphere filled with the venom of hornets' stings ? Have 
you never heard, that he thai ruleth his own spirit is better 
than he that taketh a city P 

A City Psychologist. Some of the papers are poking 
fun at Professor Royce, of Harvard, for suggesting that 
every board of education should employ a competent psy- 
chologist, whose duty it would be to examine the children 
for the purpose of determining their mental condition and 
suggesting the kind of instruction and drill needed. By 
it he would discover at once the "born shorts," the pre- 
cocious, the latents, the defectives in imagination or 
memory, the sense-defectives, the truly incorrigible, etc., 
and would be able to advise with the teacher and parent. 
He holds that such an expert would soon prove the most 
valuable member of the teaching force. Our own opinion 
is that every superintendent and principal, if not every 
teacher, should possess such ability, and that the people 
will not be long in demanding it. No one is profession- 
ally educated in the best sense who lacks it. 

The Teacher's Health. The Chicago board of educa- 
tion requires each teacher to pass a physical examination 



126 Among Ourselves. 

before the contract is signed. Could anything be more 
appropriate ? There are at least two great reasons for such 
an examination : The work of the teacher is exhaustive, 
and only those in good physical health should undertake 
it. The atmosphere in every schoolroom should be as 
pure as it is possible to make it. A sickly teacher, partic- 
ularly one afflicted with eczema, or bronchial or lung 
troubles of any kind, may easily poison the air in a room 
to such an extent as to make it dangerous for the children 
to breathe it. 

Whack ! Whack ! He is an earnest, hard-working 
teacher and often wonders why he is not securing better 
results. Though he was taught better, as the children 
march out of his room, he beats time by bringing a long 
pointer down on his desk with a noisy whack, whack, that 
grates on the ear of every sensitive child in the line and 
makes sufficient confusion to afford opportunity for grunts 
and pranks from the rougher boys and girls. He formerly 
used a gong, but finds this is better for marching, as it is 
more " stickcatto-like ! " When are we to learn that 
whacking-sticks, gongs, and the whole tribe of tom-toms 
have no place in the schoolroom? A quiet tap with a 
pencil or counting for a few paces until the children catch 
the step is in far better taste and is much more effective. 
Occasionally it may be well to resume the tapping or the 
counting for a moment, but it should not be continued 
longer than absolutely necessary. If the line is boisterous 
or stamping heavily, do not add to the noise and disorder 
by any of the above-named devices, but stop the line at 



Among Ourselves, 127 

once and let it move only as it moves quietly. A little 
perseverance in such a drill will soon work wonders. 

The Trouble. "If your sagassity were only equal to 
your perspigassity" as Mrs. Hyde often wrote to Jane, 
" your usefulness to the community would be unlimited. 
You see a wonderful lot of things, you hear as many more, 
and you imagine five times as many as you see and hear. 
Such insight is invaluable to the gossips, for it gives them 
a constant supply of delicate morsels to chew. But did you 
ever think that you are in miserably poor business and that 
you are feeding a class of social buzzards of which you are 
the chief among ten thousand? If you were only wise 
enough to use your penetration in discovering the good in 
your neighbors, in devising ways and means to help them 
reach up to a better life, instead of pulling them down, 
you would not only be a better teacher, but a better woman 
also." In which remark is much food for reflection. 

Babies ! There is a time and a place for babies, but the 
schoolroom is certainly not the place for them. No mat- 
ter how cute and sweet — all babies are cute and sweet — 
a baby may be, it cannot be brought into the schoolroom 
without attracting the attention of the pupils and interfer- 
ing with the work of the school. It frequently happens 
that mother wishes to spend a day with a neighbor, and 
that she may be free from care, sends her two-year-old 
Angie with his brother Fred to visit the school-teacher. 
Angie smiles, Angie talks, Angie tumbles off on the floor, 
Angie pouts, Angie wants a drink of water, Angie wants a 
piece of bread and sugar, Angie cries, Angie gets his 
fingers in the ink and rubs it on his face, Angie wants his 



128 Among Ourselves. 

mamma ! Angie ! Angie ! ! ! Angie visits the 

teacher in her dreams that night ! It takes at least another 
whole day to overcome the distracting effects of that visi- 
tation. Yet, out of the goodness of her heart and the 
weakness of her courage, that teacher tells that mother at 
church next Sunday how much the children enjoyed having 
Angie with them that day, and expresses the hope that he 
may come again. He comes ! Who is to blame ? Not 
Angie ! 

Shall the Boy Fight ? We are surprised to see the 
editor of the Child Study Monthly answering this question 
in the affirmative. He heartily commends a mother who 
had compelled her son to go and pummel a fellow from 
whom he had received some affront, and urges mothers to 
teach their boys to fight when insulted. He says that he 
had recently forced his own boy, "an eight-year-old, 
against the boy s own inclinations, to go and trounce his 
antagonist. He whipped him in a most creditable man- 
ner — had he not, I would have felt disgraced for life." 
Sic ! He says further that a mother must sometimes be 
willing to sit at her window and see her boy fight like a 
fiend in the gutter outside. ' ' Tenderly bandage his 
wounds, if he comes out second best, but ask no questions, 
give no advice. Rather than have your boy a coward, 
dear mother, the next time he is involved in a righteous 
quarrel, stand over him and make him fight it out, even 
at the risk of nervous prostration and hysteria." It is a 
long time since we have seen such pugilistic doctrine ad- 
vanced in a respectable journal, and we wonder whether our 
brother's longing for children's gore may not have been 



Among Ourselves. . 129 

aroused by the smell of Spanish blood. The average mother 
has about all she can do to keep her boys from fighting at 
any provocation, and certainly would hardly thank any one 
for adding to her difficulties. The boy who has the reputa- 
tion of " never taking an insult " usually has all the fight 
he needs and frequently has an extra one or two on hands. 
If he wins, he seldom fails to become a bully and a brag- 
gart himself. If he loses, he spends much of his time in 
sneaking around and tormenting little fellows who only 
resist to their undoing. The term "insult" covers a 
multitude of offences in a boy's mind : the crook of a 
finger, an inadvertent remark, a frank statement of a dif- 
ficulty to a teacher, talking to another fellow's girl, an 
innocent remonstrance against an unkind word, an impu- 
tation of lack of courage, etc. The boy who is taught to 
fight and has once tasted gore, is too generally on the alert 
for an insult, and has no difficulty in finding one, as his 
reputation as a fighter may be waning a little. We recall 
a winter of school in which, under such instruction as 1 the 
Doctor gives, the boys managed to fill out nearly every 
day with a scrap or two. One would " insult " another 
and get a whipping from the insulted. Then the " in- 
surer's" big brother would come around and thrash the 
"manly" vindicator; and then this big brother would 
catch a dressing on his way home from the bigger brother 
of the other fellow who had hid in the fence corner in an- 
ticipation of his coming. Periodically the heads of the 
families involved would join in exchanging compli- 
ments. By the way, many of our readers have probably 
seen that mother whom the Doctor mentions, urging on 



130 Among Ourselves, 

her " noble b'y " in choice brogue and have also seen 
Mrs. O'Flanigan, the sturdy mother of the other brave 
lad, in a state of wrath, approaching from the rear ! No, 
no, "dear" Doctor, such advice as you give savors not 
of the Sermon on the Mount, but rather of the law which 
died when the new gospel came. Is it not better to teach 
a child to pay no attention to unkind remarks or slights, 
even to yield to a boor or a bully for the time rather than 
have an unseemly squabble with him ? that it often requires 
more courage not to fight than to fight ? that the 
really manly man is he who dares to revile not again ? 
that enemies are to be made friends by kindness rather 
than by violence? that the only time when he is justified 
in striking another is when his personal safety or that of 
one who is unable to defend himself is in danger? These 
boys are to be men some day. They will be very much 
the same kind of men as they were boys. They ought 
to learn under mother's tutelage the better ways of right- 
ing wrongs and of showing their courage. 

This great world is the mirror into which, to know our- 
selves, we must look. Let this be my scholar's book. To 
him a closet, a garden, the table, his bed, solitude, so- 
ciety, morning and evening, all hours will be the same, 
all places will be his school. It is not a soul, it is not a 
body, we are training. It is a man ! — Montaigne. 

The Old Story. At least it is beginning to get old in 
some places. A lady said to me the other day, " Since 
your talk to the teachers of our city, one of them has dis- 
covered that the eyes of my little girl are affected and has 



Among Ourselves. 1 3 l 

brought her to the front seat. She had suffered much 
from headache and was losing interest in her studies. In 
a few days her headache left her and she is now taking 
more pleasure in school than ever. You may know how 
grateful I am for the discovery and I hope you will make 
every teacher see how important child-study is." 

The Cause of It. At Newton Rev. Brown said: "I 
have been compelled to take my boy out of school a day or 
two every now and then because of a dreadful headache 
produced by the teacher requiring him to hold his book at 
the regulation distance as he studies or reads. He is very 
near-sighted and the strain on his eyes thus caused almost 
prostrates him at times." "Did you ever tell his teacher 
about it? " asked the superintendent. " No, sir ! " And 
there it is! That "regulation distance" for a book is 
one of the most senseless and cruel things ever introduced 
into the schoolroom. There is the proper distance for 
the normal eye, of course, but to force all children to ob- 
serve it is as unreasonable as to demand that all shall be- 
come of the same height of stature. But — ■ 

The Pity of It Is that the teacher in this case did 
not discover the trouble with the eyes of the boy, and still 
more that the father, knowing it all the time, should have 
failed to inform the teacher and talk freely with her about 
it. If we can have our way, there will be no shadow of 
an excuse for such negligence on the part of Kansas teach- 
ers in the future, and we call upon every superintendent 
and principal in the State to tell this story to their teachers 
and insist upon the most careful examination and con- 
siderate treatment of every pupil in their classes. We 



132 Among Ourselves. 

also urge parents to be more free in talking to the 
teachers about the physical and mental defects of their 
children, that by their mutual confidence and sympathy 
they may serve the children more effectively. 

Another Mistake. In one of our good little towns, the 
principal became exasperated at the repeated failure of one 
of his boys to heed his requests and to do his work prop- 
erly, and gave the climax to a series of sharp reprimands 
and scoldings by punishing him severely in the old-fash- 
ioned way. The boy had been insisting that he had not 
understood the teacher, but protest had only brought an 
impatient " Pay attention to what I say, then!" With 
the severe punishment above named came a brutal attack 
upon the teacher by the boy's father, an exciting trial, and 
a six months' jail sentence. The excuse which the father 
offered was that his boy was hard of hearing and that the 
punishment the teacher had given him was undeserved. 
Whatever was the provocation, this fact should have been 
known by the teacher and it should have suggested a 
treatment with which the father could have been in perfect 
accord. Though the teacher is one of the noblest men in 
the profession, and he joined heartily in securing the com- 
mutation of the father's jail sentence, it must ever be a 
source of great grief to him that he did not take time to 
learn more about that boy before using such severe treat- 
ment. 

Whose Fault? A month since, the whole state was 
deeply interested over the mysterious disappearance of a 
little girl in one of the Wichita schools, who had been 
suspended for a trivial offence, by her teacher. The first 



Among Ourselves. 133 

report laid the blame upon the teacher and stated that the 
child felt the disgrace so keenly, that, crazed by grief she 
had chosen to go anywhere else rather than home. She 
was brought back a day or two after by a kind farmer in 
whose home she had found a refuge, and now comes the 
real explanations of her conduct. The teacher had re- 
quired her to bring an excuse from her parents for tardi- 
ness or absence, and they had refused to give it to her, 
either through indifference or obstinacy, and the poor 
child, being shut out of school, was afraid to go back home 
lest she might be scolded or punished by her loving par- 
ents. It is not the first time that the teacher has been 
severely blamed, when the fault lay mostly if not wholly 
with the parents, and it ought to remind us again how 
helpful the sympathetic cooperation of parents would be 

to us all. 

Are They Best for the Child ? Miss Smith's interest- 
ing paper at Newton opens a fruitful line of inquiry con- 
cerning what things children remember most easily and 
whether they are most profitable for them. In a moral 
way they certainly have little difficulty in remembering a 
good many things that are not for their best interests. 
Some things that they ought to be remembering they are 
constantly forgetting. In an intellectual way the truth is 
probably no less evident. But why should one go to the 
other extreme and insist that that which is difficult to re- 
member is most useful to the child ? Let us have some 
further tests to give a better understanding to the matter. 

Contagious Diseases. Teachers cannot be too careful 
about enforcing the rules excluding children with con- 



134 Among Ourselves. 

tagious diseases from school. Familiarity with their symp- 
toms, daily vigilance that their first appearance may be 
discovered, care in refusing admittance until all danger of 
infection is past, and prompt cooperation with the health 
officer have saved the life of many a child. There is 
hardly a community anywhere in which some family is not 
mourning the loss of a dear one whose death was caused 
by the ignorance of the teacher or by his neglect to pro- 
tect it properly against the disease which carried it away. 
I can never forget how bitterly a friend of mine com- 
plained of the negligence which he was assured had robbed 
him of the idol of his heart. Be wise enough and brave 
enough to protect the little ones entrusted to your care. 
Better by far err on the side of safety than run any risk of 
jeopardizing a precious life. 

Easy Enough. The other day a friend showed me a 
handsome present he had received from a lady in grati- 
tude for curing her little boy of stammering. He had met 
the family on a boat and becoming interested in the 
boy, had spent a few hours in trying to cure him of the 
habit named. He found that a little patient drill in 
enunciation, slow but accurate at first, then rapid and 
varied, soon overcame the lack of muscular control, and 
in but a day he had the rare pleasure of hearing him speak 
as naturally and as fluently as any other child. All efforts 
of the mother had failed because they were not intelli- 
gently directed, and her joy at the success of my friend 
was unbounded. 

Poking Fun. Years ago, a company of us were having 
an enjoyable half-hour poking fun at little Frank, when 



Among Ourselves, 135 

his mother appeared on the scene and explained that he 
was not accustomed to being fooled and that she preferred 
that he should not take lessons in it just yet. Now, that 
incident furnished us some food for reflection, and we have 
agreed that no greater harm can be done to a little child 
than to destroy his naturalness and simplicity by the per- 
nicious habit of ridiculing him and poking fun at him. A 
little of it may be a good thing in these early years, which 
is doubtful, but he will soon enough come in contact with 
those forces which embarrass and confuse him without 
our hurrying the process unduly. 

" One Man Objected." Well, what if he did? Was 
that any reason why the school board should declare the 
principalship vacant, set the principal adrift hunting a new 
place, mortify his family, destroy his reputation, and put 
all the schools of the city under the extravagant and 
wasteful ordeal of introducing a new and untried man at 
the opening of the next term ? What if half a dozen men 
or a dozen of them objected ? Do you expect to find a 
man who will please everybody ? Perhaps a little inquiry 
will show you that the man objects because for once his 
children are made to obey the regulations of the board, or 
because the principal has not shown the partiality for his 
children which they have been accustomed to regard as 
their right, or because of the disposition of the principal 
to follow his own judgment about the conduct of the 
school, or because he could not see his way to approve the 
application of the niece of the objector for a position as 
teacher, or because he bought his butter of another grocer, 
or because of any one of fifty silly little reasons, he, the 



136 Among Ourselves. 

objector, has taken a dislike to the principal. The man 
who makes the fewest enemies may be a most cowardly trim- 
mer and a miserable excuse as a teacher. The man who is 
brave enough to attempt the advancement of the schools 
and enforcement of order, can hardly avoid making some- 
body unfriendly, and school boards ought not to make a 
change until, after careful investigation, they are satisfied 
that the reasons for complaint are well founded and that 
the causes cannot be removed. 

Everybody Makes Mistakes, and the principal ought 
to be given a chance to correct those he makes before he 
is decapitated. It is no light thing for a man to be com- 
pelled to seek another place, and the evil effect upon the 
schools of changing teachers can often hardly be overcome 
in a whole quarter's work. The moral effect is too fre- 
quently never overcome. As soon as a few children learn 
that a little rebellion and a little grumbling can drive a 
teacher away, they do not find it difficult to trump up an 
excuse and to keep the schools in confusion all the time. 
Disturbers here, they become disturbers in after life and 
everybody suffers. I venture the statement that a little 
reasonable effort on the part of members of the school 
board will usually satisfy the patrons and result in great 
good to the schools. An ordinary teacher, faithful to his 
trust, and generously sustained by his board, will accom- 
plish far more than a procession of superior teachers, no 
one of whom stays long enough to realize his ideals, or to 
bring the children and the community into harmony with 
them. There are men and women who ought not to be 



Among Ourselves. 137 

reelected, but there ought always to be a better reason than 
because one man or several men object. 

Lesson of the Bicycle. My instructor said to me at 
my first lesson : " Put yourself in harmony with your front 
wheel, become a part of it, and the victory is won." It 
did not take long to learn why, for as he rode about every- 
where without touching his hands to the handles, I saw 
that it was because the wheel and the man were one. 
Here is a lesson for teachers in the schools. Though we 
may sometimes find it necessary to "lay on the hands," 
we must soon learn to control and direct by becoming one 
with the pupil, and by that method alone. The wheel un- 
consciously does the bidding of the rider ; so the pupil 
may as readily be directed by the teacher, if he but be- 
comes so fully a part of him that he knows his pupil's every 
impulse and so may quickly, silently, surely anticipate its 
coming and make it obedient to his own ideals. 

War Talk. War has her victories, but peace also has 
her triumphs. In these days of bluster and of brag, the 
average citizen needs to be reminded that — 

" He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that 
taketh a city. ' ' 

Victory over self assures victory over others. 

Dean Stanley says : 

" Think how often you have been mistaken ; how often 
you may be mistaken yet again. Think how, in the 
warmth of your own better feelings, your hard and cold 
heart has melted, and you may fairly hope and believe that 
the same genial warmth will spread toward whom it is 



138 Among Ourselves. 

directed; and many a proud spirit that would have long 
met scorn with scorn, and hate with hate, will be bowed 
down to the dust by one kind word; many a hard heart 
will be melted down by the morsel of bread and the cup 
of cold water, that would have resisted a whole furnace of 
angry invectives." 

Keep Growing. It must not be forgotten that the 
teacher who is willing to rest on past or present attain- 
ments will soon lose caste in the profession, and will 
sooner lose the ability to interest and stimulate the chil- 
dren to great things for themselves. The freshness and 
vigor perpetually arising in himself with each day's growth 
are imparted to the children, and they always respond with 
corresponding activity. We must not imagine that Ave 
know it all, or that the wisest possess all the truth that will 
ever be known. Lowell says : 

The world advances, and in time outgrows 
The laws that in our fathers' days were best; 
And, doubtless, after us, some purer scheme 
Will be shaped out by wiser men than we, 
Made wiser by the steady growth of time. 

The Sacredness of the Child. If anything can be 
said or done which will exalt the child in the minds of 
parents and teachers, there never was a better time for it 
than now. The "Doctor" said: "I winder why we 
have always tried to read the supernatural meaning into 
the story of the Christ-child. I tell you the message of 
the angel means too that the birth of human life is always 
sacred. We might well say at every birth, 'Go and search 
for the young child and bring me word that I may come 



Among Ourselves. 139 

and worship him.' " He comes into the world, the 
image of God, a prince among all his creatures. Shall he 
not have the choicest from a thousand hills for his meat, 
the softest fleece from the king's flock for his raiment, the 
most loving and tender of queens for his nurse, the most 
learned and consecrated of scholars for his teacher, the 
rarest and noblest of men for his companions, the holiest 
of missions for his ambitions ? If he were my child, yes ! 
If he were yours? Yes ! If he were your neighbor's? — 
If-he-were-your-neighbor's — ? 

Buttoned-up Wrong. So Janet insists and explains 
that everybody is buttoned-up just one hole too high on one 
side or the other. Poor Janet ! She squints ; that's the 
trouble, and so she goes about seeing everything and 
everybody askew. Be kind to her. She may gain her 
normal vision some day, but it will never come by ridicule, 
nor by harsh treatment. This world is not out of tune. 
Neither is the great mass of God's children so far out of 
harmony with him as many people imagine. We must 
after all get our alignment from them, and he who dis- 
covers none good stands self-condemned at once ; he sees 
the surface of things only and fails to discover the mighty 
pulses of humanity whose source is the great heart of God 
himself. 

" Just Pegs!" The following from the Pilgrim 
Teacher ought to be passed along: 

"They didn't let any little child put the pegs in ! " 
said a three-year-old kindergartner mournfully at the table 
the other day, just after coming home from Sunday-school. 
"They did it all their own selfs ! " "Oh, well," said 



140 Among Ourselves. 

some one soothingly, " you had the fun of seeing them put 
the pegs in." " 'Taint any fun ! " persisted the child. 
"I don't care 'bout seeing pegs ! It's pegs, but it ain't 
kindergarten." There the subject dropped. But some 
of the elders at table felt instructed. The essence of 
attractive and efficient teaching in the younger classes 
certainly lies very much in our success in getting the chil- 
dren themselves to "do things," as they put it. When 
they have learned the Bible verses at home, they want 
to say them ; those who have carefully committed the 
golden text feel defrauded if they are not offered a chance 
to repeat it ; and the little ones who have found out the 
positions of the towns around the Lake of Galilee feel that 
they have earned a right to " put the pegs in. ' ' Of course 
the teacher may do it and save time. It is a wasteful 
saving. The children look on listlessly, the glamour 
gone. As the baby said positively, "It's pegs; it ain't 
kindergarten." 

The Primary Object. The truth is that the man or 
woman who gets the best happiness from life, who gives 
the most happiness back to his fellows, — who really makes 
a living, — does not live to make money. Any fool can 
make money; most fools can squander it; many fools can 
hoard it. The primary object of an education should be 
to instruct men and women in the gentle art of spending 
money after they have earned it. It is not a simple 
matter; when one thinks of the joy one may bring to tired 
hearts, the comfort one may give to weary hands, the wis- 
dom one may see in an open book, the beauty one may 
conjure from a printed page — each with one humble Amer- 



Among Ourselves. 141 

ican dollar, it is small wonder that the intelligent man 
should ask for more light before he executes his trusts 
and parts with that which Providence has lent him. — 
William Allen White. 

Growing Better. The world must be growing better. 
Indeed we are growing better. You who have gathered 
here to-day assemble in a cause as holy in your time as 
that which called the Knights of the Cross to Jerusalem. 
The simple rites with which these doors are thrown open, 
begin a work which should mean to the world more than 
does the crowning of a king. With you, young men and 
women of Kansas University, is left the answer to the 
question, Shall this ceremony be consecrated to God, or 
shall it be an empty show — on a pagan holiday? Your 
work here, your lives when you shall leave these walls, 
shall prove the folly or the wisdom of your pilgrimage 
after knowledge. You should work, not because the night 
is coming, but because you have faith in a day that is 
coming. Faith — the evidence of things not seen ! Faith — 
the substance of things hoped for ! What a strange 
order, what a beautiful order, shall prevail in the day that 
shall be, when the mill of education has taken greed from 
the human heart, when men shall toil for the good they 
can do with the rewards of their labor ! Then they shall 
master the science of getting only that they may practise 
the art of giving. — William Allen White. 

You cannot give yourself up to learn the truth without 
becoming great.— Dr. Hall. 

That man may last, but never lives, 
Who much receives, but nothing gives ; 



142 Among Ourselves. 

Whom none can love, whom none can thank — 
Creation's blot, creation's blank. 

— T/iomas Gibbons. 

No Discipline There. We have no sympathy for that 
patronizing enunciation of some schools that discipline is 
unknown with them, as if this were a state to be desired. 
If order is heaven's first law, surely it ought not be made 
the last with man. An undisciplined school is no more de- 
sirable than an undisciplined home or an undisciplined 
state. Discipline is the very thing sought in the develop- 
ment of the man physically, mentally, morally, and spir- 
itually. Discipline is victory to the army, prosperity to 
the government, happiness to the home, efficiency to the 
school, success to the individual. Discipline must be 
learned as other lessons in life, by study and practice ; 
and every creditable institution of learning is bound to 
instruct therein if it aims to develop a complete, strong 
manhood- — The Bulletin. 

Too Much Uniformity. " The practice in some public 
schools of requiring the children, when moving in a body, 
to observe more than the military rigidity of line, with 
penalties for looking in any other than a prescribed direc- 
tion, or for lifting a hand to allay a facial irritation, 
reaches a climax in the San Francisco schools. There the 
boys, when lined up in front of the school, awaiting the 
tap of the bell, are required to stand with their arms 
folded across their chests exactly in the prison attitude. 
When they move it is with the prison lockstep, and be- 
tween rows of nails driven into the sidewalk, and woe be 
to the unlucky youth who steps over the line. The criti- 




CO 

nj o a 

^£° 

^ o > 




Among Ourselves. 145 

cism of the method comes from a detective. The boys, he 
claims, are acquiring a habit which in later years will be a 
source of annoyance and a cause of suspicion. Discharged 
convicts, the detective asserts, frequently resume the prison 
habit of the lockstep and the folded arms when their minds- 
are preoccupied, and to the veteran police officer the mo- 
tion and the attitude are as distinctive as the striped suit." 

The above from a Western paper may overdraw the 
San Francisco method a little, but the point is well made. 

The Lesson of the Barber. As he finished brushing 
my hair, my barber friend said to me: "There! You 
never had a better cut than that even for the thirty-five 
cents you paid the other day in Denver. Competition 
here compels me to do it now for fifteen cents, but I cut 
it just as well as I did when I received thirty-five cents for 
it. Some barbers say they manage it by giving a fifteen - 
cent cut, but I cannot afford to do that. Its effect on me 
would soon be to make me a second-class barber, and I 
have too much pride for that, to say nothing of my con- 
science." This reactive effect on the self is usually for- 
gotten by all classes of people, not omitting the school- 
masters when they are content to give cheap work for low 
pay. They are not only wasting their opportunities and 
ruining their reputations, but they are also destroying their 
power to do first-class work when they wish to do it. 

The tear down childhood's cheek that flows 
Is like the dewdrop on the rose ; 
When next the summer's breeze comes by 
And waves the bush, the flower is dry. 

—Scott. 



146 Among Ourselves. 

A man who does not learn to live while he is getting a 
living, is a poorer man after his wealth is won than he 
was before. — Holland. 

We Learn by Learning. That is, by keeping at it. 
This is not tautology. There is no other way to do it. I 
have a lady friend who is regarded as one of the best 
musicians in the West, and I find that she must have put 
nearly ten thousand hours at her piano in practice before 
she felt willing to undertake a very difficult piece of music 
on her own responsibility. She would spend the best 
practice hours for months on a selection before she would 
consent to play it in public and then her auditors found 
little to condemn and much to praise. This is the secret 
of true learning, and yet how many of us are trying to 
learn in a very superficial, hasty way, giving little time, 
care, strength, or method to the process. When we per- 
sistently strive to learn everything we undertake thor- 
oughly well, the reaction upon the self becomes marked 
and wholesome, increasing one's skill and speed with each 
succeeding effort. No man ever became a great scholar 
who minimized the importance of the act of learning. 
Abiliiy to learn conies by learning. 

Jack's Trades Union. Jack came to town to get work 
and in an innocent way did so fine a job of mowing and 
trimming a lady's yard that several neighbors came to him 
to have their lawns mowed. They all said that he did so 
many things that other laborers overlooked. He soon 
had more than he could do, and ere long was able to buy 
a little truck farm for himself. He raised more potatoes 
to the acre than the other farmers and his customers in- 



Among Ourselves. 147 

sisted that they were better. He seldom failed to sell a 
truck-wagonful on every trip. He was liberal in meas- 
uring everything. His biographer says that he always 
rounded up the half-bushel and then put still a few more 
potatoes on top, often saying to himself, " They don't cost 
much, and it helps trade ! ' ' He had many requests to join 
trades unions, but always insisted that the trades union 
between himself and his customers was good enough for 
him. Jack's theory and Jack's practice reveal the secret 
of the success of many people, teachers not excepted. 
We are too particular about the letter of the contract 
and stroke the half bushel every time. Let us rather 
imitate Jack, doing everything a little better and working 
a little longer than was expected. // does not cost much, 
and it helps trade ! 

The Conch Shell. What a beautiful fiction this, that 
the soft murmur of the conch shell as I put it to my ear, 
is the tale which the sea long ago poured into its cham- 
bers—a tale told to it in whispers and anon with the 
voice of the mighty tempest, the tumultuous churning of 
the contending waters, the deafening crash of wild thun- 
ders, the blinding sprangles of the livid lightning, the de- 
spairing cries of drowning seamen, the pitiful wail of the 
victims of the deep sea monsters — and yet all now issuing 
forth again from the labyrinths of the shell as a hushed 
lullaby, its discords and mad passions all gone, gratefully 
sweet and soothing. So the struggles and discords of life, 
the tempests, the disappointments, the shocking tragedies, 
the bitter sorrows, even the thrilling victories, gradually 
lose their sharp lines under time's tempering touch, mel- 



148 Among Ourselves. 

lowing to a harmony with the key to which each life is 
set. Few professions are set to a nobler key than ours ; 
few persons in any profession enjoy the consolations of a 
well-spent life more than the true teacher. The memories 
of the long gone years, years of conflict, of tension, of 
anxiety, of lack of appreciation, of self-denial, of sacrifice, 
of heart-aches, of betrayal of trusts, of defeat in cherished 
plans, return again in the mellow years purified and chas- 
tened by the one consuming motive of life, service. The 
pleasures of imagination, however dear to youth, are far 
less satisfying than the pleasures of a memory thus refined 
and hallowed. 

Needed Encouragement. A young man, ' ' who ought 
to have known better," was frequently offending, and had 
been repeatedly reprimanded. One day he protested that 
he was not getting the treatment he needed. He said, " I 
need encouragement, not scolding." Then he told his 
story, and it was sad enough for tears. . . . The indigna- 
tion and impatience of the teacher at once subsided and 
deep sympathy took their place. He learned more about 
human nature in that passionate apology and appeal than 
he had learned before in a dozen years. He saw how 
often he had driven pupils from him who were longing for 
the very friendship and encouragement which he was able 
to give, and what a grievous wrong he had done his own 
better nature in shutting himself up in his self-sufficient 
shell and blindly ignoring the simple laws controlling the 
development of ideals of human conduct. 

Humor in the Recitation. I remember it well. One 
of the young men in our class was being slowly driven to 



Among Ourselves. 149 

the corner by the interrogations of our merciless president, 
and manifested his distress in such ludicrous ways to my 
seatmate and myself that twice we were forced to smile, 
the last time broad enough to attract the attention of the 
president himself. He had suppressed the class the first 
time by a withering look, but now he read the riot act in 
tones that had but one meaning. Though a very learned 
man and generally regarded as a man of good judgment, 
he lacked the power to discriminate between a healthy, in- 
nocent bit of merriment and that born of irreverence, dis- 
respect, or ridicule. Anything of a humorous nature 
seemed to him to disturb the train of thought he was 
trying to develop and to be beneath the dignity of seli- 
respecting students. How droll and dreary many of his 
recitations were ! It grieves me that the only thing in 
my work with him standing out clearly in memory to-night, 
is the little episode above mentioned, and yet I am not 
disposed to blame myself much. My lessons were usually 
well prepared, and I enjoyed their study, but the utter 
humdrum of the recitation, the keen consciousness of the 
fact that a smile was "out of order, young gentlemen," 
the sphinx-like expression of the occupant o f the Chair, 
and the nervousness induced by the fear of some little in- 
discretion in act or language, combined to suppress the 
interest already aroused and to rob study of its best fruit- 
age. It is an easy thing for a teacher to destroy a recita- 
tion by too much levity, and this extreme is as reprehen- 
sible as the other, but the proper mean is certainly not 
difficult to find. 



15° Among Ourselves. 

" If at first you don't succeed, 
Try, try, again." 

Willie had just learned this encouraging little couplet, 
and as ne was closing his evening prayer, he surprised his 
mother by adding : 

O Lord, make me very good, — 
If at first you don't succeed, 
Try, try, again. 

There it is in a nutshell! Shall all perseverance be on 
one side ? Shall the child be the only one to try again 
and again ? Shall not the teacher also repeat his effort 
to help the child to see clearer and to be better ? If he 
fail once, or twice, or even thrice, shall the quality of 
mercy be strained ? Shall kindly effort therefore cease ? 
Nay, verily, my brother! 

Why Not ? As our minister was leading his people in 
earnest prayer the other morning, the entire congregation 
was startled by a sharp cry from a little child in a rear 
pew. A lady near by slipped over and found a six-year- 
old boy pounding his little brother of five " to make him 
keep his head down until the prayer was over. " The two 
had knelt very reverently, but the younger had grown 
restless and wanted to see what was going on around him, 
— hence the chastisement which followed. With no more 
regard for time and place, with no more reason for his 
course than this elder brother, many a teacher thumps and 
punishes a pupil for offenses no more serious, offenses 
that would have been overlooked but for the childishness 
of the teacher himself. 



Among Ourselves. 15 1 

The One Thing Needful. Too many of us spend time 
hunting positions, which had far better been spent in 
fitting ourselves to fill them when offered us. Montan's 
advice to Wilhelm Meister will serve us as well as him : 
" Practice till you are an able violinist, and be assured 
that the director will have pleasure in assigning you a 
place in the orchestra. Make an instrument of yourself, 
and wait and see what sort of place humanity will kindly 
grant you in universal life." 

Fresh-mindedness. Edward Eggleston, in his intro- 
duction to the "Schoolmaster in Literature," wisely 
declares that no other device of the teacher can ever 
render study so delightful to the pupils as the " fresh- 
mindedness" of the teacher himself. If his mind is 
refreshed daily by drawing inspiration from the master- 
pieces of literature, if his zest for knowledge grows keener 
with each new experience, he will hardly fail to render the 
pathway of his pupils delightsome. Whether a grade or 
high-school teacher, the need for good, wholesome mental 
food each day to keep the mind fresh and vigorous is just 
as positive as is the need for good and wholesome food to 
sustain a strong and healthy body. Every teacher will 
find it profitable to set apart an hour each day that shall 
be faithfully devoted to self-culture, — to the interpretation 
of some great poem, the reading of some thoughtful 
essay, the review of some interesting period in history, the 
analysis of some great character, or the study of some 
superior work of art, — to a better acquaintanceship with 
the life of the forest and field round about, and with the 
great social and industrial movements of his time. That 



i 52 Among Ourselves. 

is the only way to maintain the fresh-mindedness so potent 
in the schoolroom. 

Coming Along Nevertheless. Years ago I entered a 
railway car going east just as a heavy snowstorm came 
up from the west. We were soon flying along, and I 
settled down to my book. On looking up some time 
afterward, I was greatly surprised to find that the snow 
was coming from the east, and supposed that the wind 
had suddenly changed. As the train slowed up at the 
next station, however, the wind almost ceased for a 
moment and then was blowing from the west again ! I 
then knew that the snow had been blowing from the west 
all of the time and that part of the time we had been 
going at a higher speed than the wind, hence the illusion 
of its change. We often get out of patience with our 
fellow craftsmen and with the world at large, because they 
seem to be standing still or to be going backward, when 
as a matter of fact they are moving in the same direction 
in which we are going, but may simply be coming along at 
a little slower rate, — possibly with a better understanding 
than we ourselves. 

The Touch of Truth. Matthew Arnold says that the 
touch of truth is the touch of life. The children are not 
able at first to grasp truth in the abstract, but must be 
given it in the concrete. They must see it with their eyes 
and feel it with their hands; they must see it in action 
and be aroused by its touch. It is^as true of moral as of 
intellectual truth, perhaps more so. The Master became 
incarnate to reveal the Father as the truth and the life. 
Men could not understand it before as they have since. 



Among Ourselves. 153 

Laws, rituals, scourgings, ceremonies, the smoke of 
bloody altars, the odor of frankincense and myrrh, and 
symbols without number, had failed to bring mankind to 
its proper conception. Christ came to show that the 
truth and the life are one; through the life he showed the 
world the truth. The woman who was healed by touch- 
ing his garments had life because she had touched the 
Truth. How full of suggestion to us! How much easier 
are our tasks assured if we but live the truth, so that virtue 
shall go out to our pupils if they but touch our garments. 
I have known such; and blessed is their memory. 

" My Eyes ! " In conducting an advanced spelling- 
class years ago, I followed the plan of requiring the 
students to exchange writing-spellers after the words had 
been written and to mark the misspelled words in each 
other's spellers. Some member of the class pronounced 
and spelled the words correctly as a guide to the marking. 
One day one of the pupils came to me complaining that 
her critic was marking words that were correctly spelled. 
I spoke about it to the offender, who, by the way, was 
one of the most conscientious girls I ever met, and in 
evident distress, she exclaimed, " My eyes! I suppose it 
must be my eyes! " A little investigation confirmed a 
suspicion which she had not been willing to verify for 
herself before, and a flood of light was at once thrown 
upon many of her difficulties. The story points its own 
moral. 

Spelling by Muscular Pictures. A little experimenta- 
tion will show fou that in writing words, accuracy 
depends more upon the attainment of perfect muscular 



1 54 Among Ourselves . 

movement in learning to write them than upon the eye- 
pictures. While the eye-pictures enable us to determine 
their correctness, the correctness of the writing is depend- 
ent upon the nature of the response which the muscles of 
the arm and fingers make as the word expressing the 
thought comes into the mind. We write hundreds of 
words automatically, the mind being engrossed with the 
thought. Who ever stops to spell out mentally the words 
he uses every day ? How many of us are good proof- 
readers and yet make mistakes in spelling when the 
thoughts flow rapidly ? How many seldom make a 
mistake in writing down their own thoughts and yet mis- 
spell many words when dictated in columns ? How 
many blunder in oral spelling, but seldom write a word 
wrong ? The problem of good spelling is a problem of 
muscular control as well as a problem of eye-pictures. 
This principle has long been recognized in penmanship 
and drawing, but is too generally ignored in teaching 
spelling. It explains why many pupils misspell words in 
their writing-spellers that they spelled correctly orally at 
home to their mothers or other members of the family. 
It explains the persistent misspelling of certain classes of 
words when children " know better. " It also magnifies 
the importance of correctly spelling every new word as 
the child meets it, particularly as he attempts to write it, 
and of a sufficient number of repetitions to insure the 
integrity of the whole movement when the word is 
attempted again. As I am closing this paragraph, a 
principal of long and successful experience tells me that, 
at his suggestion, his teachers have for many years 



Among Ourselves. 155 

required their children to write correctly several times 
each new word they meet, so as to fix definitely its mus- 
cular-picture, and that the results have always been most 
gratifying. 

The two great banes of humanity are self-conceit and 
the laziness coming from self-conceit. — Spinoza. 

To have the sense of creative activity is the great 
happiness and the great proof of being alive. — Matthew 
Arnold. 

Self-activity. In Commissioner W. T. Harris' most 
profound and stimulating treatise on the Psychologic 
Foundations of Education, he clearly sets forth the func- 
tion of self-activity in the educational process. Self- 
activity is the inherent activity by which an individual 
realizes itself. In the mineral, under given conditions, it 
builds up certain crystalline forms in accordance with 
ideals imposed upon it by a power above itself. Each 
mineral has its own characteristic crystallization and it 
can take upon itself no other. The vital principle of the 
plant germ through its activity realizes the ideal form 
imposed upon it, each producing after its kind. The 
same inexorable law controls all animal life, dictating the 
limits of self-activity and fixing the forms which it shall 
realize. In these three worlds, — the mineral, the plant, 
the animal, — the function of self-activity is purely that of 
realization, of form building, the ideal to be realized 
being imposed from without. In the realm of mind this 
self-same activity exists, but its function is now twofold : 
it sets up its own ideals and it also realizes them. The 



J 56 Among Ourselves. 

office of education is then not to be limited to the 
process of training a child to conform to certain ideals 
set up by his teacher; it includes that higher and more 
important process, the process of teaching the child to 
think for himself, to build ideals of his own. Plants and 
animals can be trained, but not educated. Too many 
children are merely trained and hence become machines 
only. Their power to think is neither quickened nor 
directed. A clear understanding of the double function 
of self-activity naturally suggests the double function of 
education, hence the great value of a knowledge of the 
full significance of self-activity to every teacher. In our 
efforts to stimulate the thinking or idealizing activity of 
the child, however, w r e ought not to ignore the necessity 
for the development of skill in realizing his ideals. 
Parents often think it enough to assist a child to clear 
ideals of right and wrong and forget to assist him in doing 
the right and avoiding the wrong a sufficient number of 
times to make right action instantly conform to right 
thinking. They are also prone to forget the reciprocal 
effects of thinking and doing on each other, the enlighten- 
ment which comes to thinking through experience, the 
skill that in turn is attained in execution through the 
guidance of the intellect thus enlarged. The conception 
of this dualism in education is an essential basis for all 
method and all philosophy. 

Utilizing Simple Means. In building a bridge across 
the Charles river, the workmen discovered a heavy sewer- 
pipe buried deep under the bed of the stream, which had 
been in disuse so long that everybody had forgotten it. 



Among Ourselves. T 57 

It became necessary to remove it. Heavy cable chains 
were attached and a steam tug was called into requisition. 
One failed to start it, and a second was called to assist. 
The two together could not shake it in its bed. A 
Yankee standing near said he could lift it without any 
machinery whatever, and after a little parleying he was 
given the contract to do it. He had two old hulls of 
ships towed up the river, and laid two immense logs across 
from one to the other, over which he fastened the cable 
chains attached to the pipe. He did nothing more but 
go up the bank and sit down and whistle. Soon the tide 
began to come up and the old hulls began to rock a little. 
Before the tidal wave had reached its full height they 
began to go with it, carrying the sewer-pipe along with 
them. And the Yankee continued to whistle! 

The above story by Dr. A. E. Winship ought to bring 
many who read it back to " first principles " at once and 
ought to help us all to the solution of certain puzzling 
problems. 

Loading Up. It is the easiest thing in the world for a 
teacher to permit himself to load up with all kinds of 
work. Just now there comes to me the case of a young 
woman who is breaking down and fears she will be com- 
pelled to give up her school. She is the leader of the 
church choir and of the young people's society of the 
church, teaches a class in Sunday-school, is an active 
member of a missionary society, is the moving spirit in a 
literary club, is keeping up the reading in the teachers' 
reading circle, and is punctilious in the discharge of her 
social duties. These things alone are enough to use up 



158 Among Ourselves. 

the strength of an average woman, but when the work of 
the schoolroom with all its accompanying responsibilities 
and anxieties is added to them, there can be but one end. 
When there is so much to be done and the teacher seems 
to be the one most competent to do it, the temptation to 
yield to the solicitations of friends to accept leadership 
is always great, but the lesson might as well be learned 
first as last that one can do only a very few things 
thoroughly well. One's best time and best strength 
should be saved for his regular work. A reasonable 
amount of both ought to go into the service of the church 
and of society, but every one owes it to himself as well as to 
those whom he serves that he preserve inviolably a certain 
amount of time each day for self-culture. Growth ceases 
without it, and usefulness does not last long after that. 

Ways of Doing Things. Dr. A. E. Winship. is 
authority for a good story illustrating ways of doing 
things. A lady went to take charge of a school that was 
notorious for fighting. She soon discovered that a certain 
youth of fourteen was the leading pugilist, and sought 
means of winning his friendship. When she felt sure that 
she could ask a great favor of him, she told him she had 
a special request to make which she hoped he would 
grant at once. He told her with emphasis that he would 
do anything in the world for her, except to quit fighting ! 
No argument could move him. Punishment had failed. 
What was to be done ? She happened to read a story 
from " Greek Heroes" to the pupils one morning which 
interested the boy greatly. He asked her to lend him the 
book. In a few days he brought it back, saying that he 



Among Ourselves. J 59 

had read it through, but that " the stories did not read 
like they did when she read them." She agreed to read 
one a day after school for him. After a few more had 
been read, he told her with a sigh of despair that he had 
been born too late. She asked why. He replied that he 
was a born fighter, and that if he had been born in 
ancient Greece he might have been somebody. She told 
him that he might make a name for himself by stopping 
the righting in that school. He said that he would do it. 
At the next recess she heard a disturbance at the door, 
and looking up, saw him holding a boy by the hair with 
each hand and occasionally giving them a push against 
the sides of the door by way of emphasis as he exclaimed : 
" I'll teach you kids how to fight around here. I tell 
you this thing has got to stop. There will be no more 
righting in this school. Do you hear? Well, then, 
mind ! ' ' 

And there was no more fighting in that school. 

The Graces. While it is essential that every teacher 
should possess those graces of heart and soul which are 
everywhere recognized as the characteristics of true man- 
hood and womanhood, success in managing children and 
in inspiring them with ideals of the finer sort is also 
dependent upon the external graces, or those graces which 
in a general way may be called the graces of attitude and 
expression. They include the habits, as commonly under- 
stood, such as cleanliness, neatness, stature, movement, 
expression, language, voice, manners, etc. Their pres- 
ence is in large measure the secret of the success of many 
very ordinary men and women, and their absence, the 



160 Among Ourselves, 

secret of the failure of many men and women of genius. 
Long ago — 

Cleanliness was ranked next to godliness, and it holds 
its high place in these later years. In a land where water 
is plentiful and soap is cheap, there is no excuse for 
slovenliness. The civilization of a nation is easily deter- 
mined by the quality and the amount of soap it uses, — 
likewise of an individual. In commending a lady to me 
some years since the president of an Eastern college said, 
" Her scholarship and ability are unquestioned, but when 
here, she was slovenly in body and dress, and I am afraid 
has not reformed." A visit to her home confirmed his 
suspicion, and she was given no further consideration. 
One may be poor, but he can always be clean. Least of 
all men the school-teacher has an excuse for filthiness, 
and yet I am sorry to say one of the filthiest men I ever 
met was a certain village schoolmaster, while one of the 
tidiest was a foundryman. In addition to the comfort 
given those with whom we associate, there is a freshness 
and a vigor which cleanliness perpetually begets that 
increases mightily our own daily relish in living. 

Neatness is the Child of cleanliness, and it is difficult 
for one to keep house without the other. It shows itself 
in the kitchen-maid by the luster of her kettles and pans 
and by the tidiness of her bib and tucker, in the artisan 
by the condition of his work -bench and of his tools, in 
the shopkeeper by the attractiveness of his show-case and 
the judgment exercised in the display of his wares, in the 
teacher by the fit and the appropriateness of his clothes 
as well as by the condition and arrangement of the furni- 



Among Ourselves. 161 

ture, the books, the apparatus, the work on the black- 
board, his manuscripts, etc., etc. This grace reveals its 
presence in a multitude of little details that give a man or 
a woman recognition anywhere, and nowhere else more 
readily than with the children. What we need is influence 
with the children, power to control them by awakening 
their higher sensibilities rather than by brute force, and 
as we strive to influence our peers and our superiors by 
appeal to their aesthetic sense, shall we ignore its value in 
dealing with the children ? When Joseph was asked to 
appear before Pharaoh, the first thing he did was to shave 
himself. One great secret in gaining favors, whether 
from children or adults, is to assure them by seeking them 
with such a gracious presence that it begets a desire to 
serve you even before the request is uttered. The people 
of this world are often more wise than the schoolmasters. 
Stature. By this I do not mean size, great or small, 
though it may enter as a factor. I mean rather a sym- 
metrically developed figure, a healthy, vigorous body, a 
square-shouldered, full-chested, clear-eyed, warm-blooded 
animal; one whose nerves are constantly giving off enough 
magnetism to quicken the movement and the perception 
of every sluggish child and to lead all of the pupils into 
harmony with itself. No person of low vitality ought to 
teach school, and, other things being equal, the prefer- 
ence should always be given to those candidates having 
the least physical blemish. I am sometimes told that 
this is a hard doctrine, but the schools are supported for the 
sake of the children, and not for the sake of the teachers. 
Does anyone dare say me nay? In Phoenix, Ariz., as 



1 62 Among Ourselves. 

well as in many other cities, a rigid physical examination 
is required of all teachers, and no applicant will be 
employed who shows the slightest tendency to tuber- 
culosis. The aesthetic and hygienic reasons for this 
demand are, however, not the only weighty ones prompt- 
ing it. If you desire to teach school, fit yourself for it 
physically as well as mentally. This fitting will neces- 
sarily include the grace of — 

Movement, for grace in form is usually the product of 
grace in movement. Easy, natural positions in sitting 
and standing are characteristics of the well-bred lady or 
gentleman, and the self-possession shown in them gives an 
immediate command of a schoolroom that the lounging 
or fidgety teacher is never able to attain. One of the 
best instructors in my acquaintance recently lost a good 
position because he persisted in spreading himself all over 
his own desk and the desks of his pupils. He also had 
a hitching gesture, much of the time with his hands in his 
pockets, that made his pupils nervous and restless. The 
lazy, indolent way in which many teachers rise or sit down 
is simply inexcusable. In a week's time half of their 
pupils are unconsciously imitating them, and the demoral- 
izing effect is most deplorable. Pupils naturally get their 
ideals from their teachers, and consciously as well as 
unconsciously imitate them in nearly everything they do, 
— in walking, in using the pointer, in handling the eraser, 
in gesture, in voice, in language, in manners, etc. A 
distinguished journalist was walking with me some time 
since and noticed all of the boys among my students 
tipping their hats as they met me. He said: " How is 



Among Ourselves. 163 

this ? Do you require all of your students to salute you 
in this way ? " I replied: " No sir; I always tip my hat 
to them and few students fail to respond in the same way 
after the first greeting. Watch these little boys ahead of 
us as we meet them." 

Milton says of his ideal, — 

" Grace was in all her steps, 
Heaven in her eye, 
In all her gestures 
Modesty and love." 

So along with these graces should come the specific grace 
of— 

Facial Expression, by which the changing counten- 
ance reveals the passions and thoughts of the soul within. 
No teacher has a right to enter his schoolroom habitually, 
or even frequently, with a long face, nor with a troubled 
face, much less with an angry or repellent face. What- 
ever of the other graces he may possess, if his countenance 
be indifferent or forbidding, he is at once shorn of much 
of his power. Nature may not have done much for him, 
but through interest and sympathy and consecration the 
homeliest faces become radiant and winning, assuring 
and helpful. A kindly eye, an encouraging smile, a flush 
of pleasure at the success of a pupil, evident regret at his 
failure, though not a word be spoken, are potent factors 
with all grades of children. A friend of mine rules every 
circle she enters by her smile; another drives nearly 
everybody away from her by the cynicism that shows in 
every look. It is said that in one of the French provinces 
the girls are taught from the moment they leave their 



1 64 Among Ourselves. 

cradles that the chief end in living is to be beautiful. As 
a result, the girls and the women of that province are the 
most beautiful in all the world. It being possible to 
cultivate this grace, who is excusable for neglecting it ? 
As the facial expression of a husband or wife by long 
association usually approximates that of the more self- 
assertive of the two, so in much greater measure and in 
much shorter time the countenances of the children are 
fashioned after those of their teachers. Remember the 
story of ' ' The Great Stone Face. ' ' 

Language is a grace that belongs in every good 
teacher's equipment. Among all the graces that I have 
mentioned, I prize none so highly as the grace of lan- 
guage, — the ability to express one's ideals readily, clearly, 
forcibly, elegantly in one's mother tongue — that mastery 
of words which always enables one to select exactly the 
right word at the right time, no matter what the demand 
or the occasion, — to use not simply the word having the 
desired meaning, but the word fit for the moment, the 
word having appropriateness of tone and of rhythm. 
Such command of language is invaluable at every turn the 
teacher makes, giving him skill in the recitation as well 
as in the management of his pupils. Once I heard a lady 
say that no music, vocal or instrumental, no painting or 
piece of sculpture, had ever affected her so powerfully as 
eloquent language. With this statement I heartily agree. 
I would rather converse like Madame de Stael than sing 
like the Swedish nightingale. I would rather write like 
Hawthorne than play the violin like Ole Bull. No other 
grace is so insinuating, so irresistible. No one can read 



Among Ourselves. 167 

any author much without unconsciously imitating him in 
style and diction. How much more true it is of a child 
that whatever there be of excellence or defect in the 
language of his teacher or his parents it will assuredly 
become part and parcel of his own endowment. If I 
were to be permitted to choose a companion and teacher 
for my child who speaks graceful English, but would not 
teach it technical grammar, and one who speaks " ordi- 
nary" English and would teach it grammar, I would not 
hesitate a moment about preferring the former. It would 
not be difficult to foretell the result in either case. 
When our examinations in grammar include the graceful 
use of the English language in conversation and writing, 
we shall have taken a great step forward. 

I am laying stress on these graces for their utilitarian 
effect, not in a narrow but in a broad sense, and do not 
hesitate to include the — 

Grace of Voice. The grace of language is greatly 
enhanced by it, but the voice has a specific value of" its 
own. Many people are reached by a musical voice who 
are deaf to language only, and children are particularly 
susceptible to its charms. Byron says, — 

" The Devil hath not in all his quiver's choice 
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice." 

But it is also even a more effective weapon for appealing 
to the finer and nobler sentiments of the soul, and its 
office in education has too long been overlooked. It is 
not enough that a teacher read well and speak well on 
the platform. He should have a well-modulated voice, 
pure in tone, low in pitch, rich in quality, incisive, 



1 68 Among Ourselves. 

flexible, resonant. Nasal, twangy, high-pitched voices 
will sooner or later ruin any school; the same is true of 
very low, asthmatic, or aspirated voices. Peevish, mourn- 
ful, rasping voices are far too common, and yet how are 
we going to suppress them Us long as teachers will use 
them in the schoolroom as models for their children ? A 
teacher should give as much attention to the voice he 
uses as to the sentences he utters. 

Good Manners. The merely learned man is not a 
civilized man. He becomes civilized only when he has 
attained that mastery of self and of social forms which 
continually prompts and enforces deferential and gracious 
treatment of those with whom he comes in contact, what- 
ever their rank or station. The art of good manners is a 
fine art, and when properly learned is a passport to any 
circle, to any home. It wins friends everywhere. Emer- 
son says that "Address rules the world." It gives its 
possessor the mastery of palaces and of fortunes wherever 
he goes. The great diplomats have all been masters of 
this art. Queens of the social circle are without exception 
skilled in it. Many teachers win the affection and loyalty 
of their pupils by a graciousness of manner and a gentle- 
ness of courtesy whose subtle power even gross souls 
cannot resist. Given, the graces already named and this 
grace of good manners and the problem of government is 
already solved for a teacher in most schools. But again, 
and for a thousand times, let it be said that " the graces 
are catching," and of no other is it more true than of 
good manners. Refined, gentlemanly boys and ladylike 
girls are better assured by example than by precept only. 



Among Ourselves. 169 

The atmosphere of a schoolroom over which such a 
teacher as I am describing presides, will do more toward 
quickening the finer sensibilities of child nature and 
eliminating selfishness and boorishness than all of the 
lectures that father Gradgrind could deliver during his 
natural life. 

Subconscious Forces cannot be ignored in education. 
They give tone to a child's feelings and often affect them 
most subtly and profoundly. Whatever pleases him, 
gains so much power in controlling him. As a matter of 
fact, the principal part of the educational process is in 
making conditions, setting up suitable environment, 
putting into operation healthy and appropriate stimuli. 
This being true, do you not see the vital importance of 
surrounding a child with those influences that conspire to 
refine and. uplift him ? If you are a conscientious teacher, 
in just such measure as you lack the graces named, will 
your daily burden be increased; and here again is empha- 
sized a more liberal preparation for the holy calling of the 
teacher than is usually thought necessary. 

Can You Reach It? The noble standard of action 
which Marcus Aurelius sets up for us may well be care- 
fully studied by everybody. Shall we not try to reach it ? 

"One man, when he has done a service to another, is 
ready to set it down to his account as a favor conferred. 
Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind 
he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows what 
he has done. A third, in a manner, does not even know 
what he has done ; he is like a vine which has produced 
grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has once 



170 Among Ourselves. 

produced its proper fruit. As a horse when he has run, 
a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it has 
made its honey, so a man when he has done a good act, 
does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes 
on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the 
grapes in season. Must a man, then, be one of these, 
who in a manner acts thus without observing it ? Yes. 

"What more dost thou want when thou hast done a 
man a service ? Art thou not content that thou hast 
done something conformable to thy nature, and dost thou 
seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye demanded a 
recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking ? " 

The Future Life. The following oft-quoted inspiring 
words from Victor Hugo, as premonitions of the end of 
his life came upon him, may serve to quicken your vision 
and help you also to catch the strains of immortal 
symphonies : 

" I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest 
which has been more than once cut down. The new 
shoots are stronger and livelier than ever. I am rising, I 
know, toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. 
The earth gives me its generous sap, but heaven lights 
me with the reflection of unknown worlds. . . . You 
say the soul is nothing but the resultant of bodily powers. 
Why, then, is my soul the more luminous when my bodily 
powers begin to fail ? Winter is on my head, and eternal 
spring is in my heart. Then I breathe at this hour the 
fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses as at 
twenty years. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer 
I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds 



Among Ourselves . 171 

which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple. It is a 
fairy tale, and it is history. For half a century I have 
been writing my thoughts in prose, verse, history, philoso- 
phy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, song, — I 
have tried all. But I feel that I have not said the 
thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down to 
the grave, I can say, like so many others, ' I have finished 
my day's work,' but I cannot say, ' I have finished my 
life.' My day's work will begin again the next morning. 
The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. It 
closes in the twilight, to open with the dawn. 

" I improve every hour, because I love this world as my 
fatherland. My work is only a beginning. My monu- 
ment is hardly above its foundation. I would be glad to 
see it mounting forever. The thirst for the infinite proves 
infinity." 



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